Managing Up: Strategies for Leading from Any Role
What does it really mean to “manage up,” and why is it so vital for healthy, mission-driven teams?
In this episode of the ThinkingCAAP podcast, Beck Moore and Heather Holloway from Holloway Media Services sit down with CAAP’s own Erika Carpin and Georgia Del Freo for an honest, practical conversation about managing up, building trust, and creating a culture where communication flows both ways. From conference planning to capacity building, they share real-world examples of how delegation, feedback, and self-awareness strengthen leadership at every level.
Whether you're a new manager or a seasoned leader, this episode offers insights on how to collaborate more effectively, support one another across roles, and foster a team culture rooted in clarity, connection, and mutual respect.
Thinking CAAP Talking Points
[0:00] Introduction and Guest Backgrounds on Leadership and Team Roles
Beck Moore introduces the podcast and guests Erika Carpin and Georgia Del Freo, who share their roles at CAAP and their leadership experiences, setting the stage for a discussion on managing up and workplace culture.
[5:31] Defining Managing Up: Building Effective Manager-Employee Relationships
The hosts explore the concept of managing up, emphasizing mutual understanding of goals, clear communication, and alignment between managers and staff to help each other succeed within an organization.
[7:46] Practical Insights on Managing Up: Balancing Strengths and Leadership Support
Georgia and Erika discuss managing up as supporting leadership by complementing their strengths and weaknesses, whether focusing on details or big-picture vision, highlighting the importance of strategic collaboration and constructive feedback.
[10:12] Real-Life Examples of Managing Up and Delegation Challenges
Georgia shares personal stories about learning to delegate and accepting support from her team, illustrating the impact of trusting colleagues and managing workload to avoid burnout as essential elements of effective leadership.
[12:45] Leadership Growth and Managing Up Across Different Experience Levels
Beck and Erika reflect on their varying tenures as managers, discussing the transition from individual contributor to leader and the challenges of managing people, reinforcing that managing up evolves with leadership experience and team dynamics.
[14:38] Effective Collaboration and Delegation in Event Planning
Erika Carpin discusses the importance of managing details and consistent follow-up with Beck Moore during conference planning, highlighting how balancing big ideas with detailed execution strengthens their working relationship and ensures successful outcomes.
[15:24] Building Capacity Through Delegation and Time Management
Beck Moore shares how delegating tasks and reclaiming time improved responsiveness and productivity, emphasizing capacity as essential for effective leadership and entrepreneurship, and recognizing delegation as a skill developed over the years of growing a team.
[16:42] The Art of Managing Up: Communication and Solution-Oriented Approaches
The hosts explore managing up as stepping up with purpose—communicating clearly, understanding leadership styles, and presenting solutions instead of problems—to build meaningful relationships and foster a culture of mutual support and accountability.
[19:24] Cultivating a Supportive Culture Where Saying “No” Is Accepted
The team highlights CAAP's workplace culture that encourages openness about capacity limitations, valuing vulnerability and respect, which empowers employees to express challenges honestly and manage up without fear, fostering psychological safety and team cohesion.
[27:04] Leveraging Strengths and Communication Styles for Better Team Dynamics
The conversation covers the use of StrengthsFinder assessments during onboarding at CAAP, promoting understanding of individual skill sets and communication styles, which enhances managing up and down by providing a common language to improve collaboration and confidence.
[28:54] Onboarding New Staff and Understanding Communication Styles
The hosts discuss team onboarding processes focusing on strengths and weaknesses.
Erika Carpin highlights using perceptive communications assessments to understand how team members both send and receive information, emphasizing the impact on team relationships when perceptions align or clash.
[30:47] Leveraging Strengths for Team Success with StrengthsFinder and DISC
The conversation covers applying StrengthsFinder and DISC tools to help team members thrive.
Georgia Del Freo shares examples of how understanding individual strengths, like context-focused detail orientation, improves manager-employee dynamics and overall team performance.
[34:38] Building Effective Communication Without Formal Assessments
Erika Carpin offers practical tactics for understanding managers’ priorities and communication preferences without formal tools.
She recommends asking directly and observing reactions during conversations to tailor communication styles and support goal alignment naturally within teams.
[37:07] Cultivating Connection and Culture in a Virtual Environment
The hosts explore strategies to maintain a strong team culture remotely. They emphasize starting virtual meetings with personal check-ins, using fun questions to foster connection, and sharing work goals, creating a supportive environment that mimics in-person emotional engagement.
[41:07] Encouraging Team Engagement Through Fun and Friendly Competition
The team shares experiences of boosting morale with activities like walking challenges.
This fosters camaraderie and motivation, showcasing how competition and shared goals help maintain energy and engagement in a virtual workplace setting.
[42:16] Team Step Challenge Sparks Engagement and Healthy Competition
Beck Moore and guests discuss launching a step challenge with inexpensive fitness trackers, sparking team spirit and competition.
The team collectively walked the equivalent of crossing Pennsylvania, fostering motivation, social connection, and enthusiasm within the virtual workplace.
[44:08] Building Connection and Managing Up in a Virtual Environment
Beck Moore reflects on developing team management skills, including instituting weekly one-on-ones and using Asana.
Emphasis is placed on maintaining human connection and effective communication despite remote work challenges.
[45:45] Effective Strategies for Managing Up and Supporting Leadership
Erika Carpin shares best practices for managing up, such as consolidating questions for one-on-ones, anticipating leadership needs, and preparing materials in advance.
The team’s use of Asana aids in task management and clear communication with Beck Moore.
[48:46] Personalized Communication Styles Enhance Team Efficiency
Beck Moore highlights how Erika’s proactive sharing of information, tailored to Beck’s ADHD and processing style, improves collaboration.
This personalized approach demonstrates understanding and respect for individual working preferences, enhancing team effectiveness.
[52:16] Navigating Difficult Conversations with Empathy and Solutions
The team discusses approaching challenging conversations by fully understanding situations, avoiding blame, proposing solutions, and being mindful of timing and emotional context, fostering a supportive and accountable team culture at CAAP.
[55:13] Building Trust Through Delegation and Event Planning
Beck Moore, Erika Carpin, and Georgia Del Freo discuss the importance of trust in leadership, especially through delegation in event planning processes, emphasizing reciprocal confidence that fosters independent team management and stronger leader-staff relationships.
[55:56] Leadership Growth: Emphasizing Regular Check-Ins and Open Communication
Erika Carpin shares insights on evolving her leadership style by prioritizing regular check-ins and fostering honest communication.
She highlights the need to proactively engage her team to support them effectively and encourage upward management.
[57:35] Creating a Human-Centered Work Environment with Personal Connections
Georgia Del Freo emphasizes the value of acknowledging personal aspects like family and milestones to build a supportive and inclusive team culture, contrasting this approach with previous experiences where such openness was inconsistent.
[58:24] Establishing Effective One-on-One Meetings and Managing Managerial Ego
The hosts explore the rarity of routine one-on-ones in human services and underscore the importance of managers checking egos at the door to empower staff, allowing team members to speak openly and influence leadership decisions.
[1:01:11] Balancing Open Door Policies with Focused Work Time and Communication Tools
Discussion centers on maintaining open communication while respecting managers’ need for uninterrupted work time.
The conversation addresses setting boundaries, utilizing communication platforms thoughtfully, and tailoring methods to reduce overload and enhance team productivity.
Transcript of Episode 17 - Managing Up: Strategies for Leading from Any Role
00:00:00
What's up, everybody? Welcome to Thinking CAAP. Heather Holloway with me, my fearless co-host at Holloway Media Services. It's such a thrill to be here. Such a thrill to be here.
00:00:09
I love talking over you. I'm so sorry about that, but I'm so excited to get into this episode. Okay, back to you. We just like stepping on each other's feet. It's totally okay.
00:00:16
Yeah. I recently listened back to, like, six different episodes and found things that really annoy myself about myself, and none of which is our banter. So for one good.
00:00:31
Highlight of the show. Right? I know. Just saying. So, yeah.
00:00:35
Everybody, thanks for joining us. We're here today with two of my fearless leadership companions on the CAAP team. We're here to talk about managing up. I guess I should introduce myself. Beck Moore, CEO of Community Action Association of Pennsylvania.
00:00:49
I think everybody knows my voice at this point, but in case you don't. So with us today is Erika Carpin and Georgia Del Freo. I'm going to let them kind of introduce themselves and talk a little bit about what they do. But we're really here specifically to talk about managing up. I know that, Heather, you and I have talked a lot about kind of the culture of CAAP, about workplace culture in general, Leadership journey.
00:01:10
I feel like this episode is a little bit of. Right. Like, peek behind the curtain. Yeah, Right. And, you know, we talked about leadership.
00:01:17
We've talked to Frontline workers. Now let's get in the center of the Oreo, if you will. Right. What's happening in the middle? Right.
00:01:26
Well, and as I was prepping, I think what I said to the team was like, be really honest and like, this is the gut check. Like, is what I'm saying actually true about what happens at CAAP. And so, again, I'm just going to remind Erika and Georgia. Right. Just be real.
00:01:41
I can absolutely accept what I am not. Great. Which I know I have examples of and willing to share completely. So, Georgia, if you want to start by just giving us kind of an intro about yourself and a little bit of context about what you do here at CAAP. Yeah, sure.
00:01:55
Thanks for having me today. Georgia Del Freo, Chief Strategy Officer here at CAAP. I'm so excited to be part of the team. Been here for about two years now. Been part of Community Action for almost 25 years, which is crazy to say, but came over from a local agency and so excited that I made that jump.
00:02:21
My role here really is to assist with a lot of the programming side of things and helping to make that connection to the local agencies as well, and to bring that knowledge from having that experience at the local agencies to the association and to just help expand the programming that we're already doing. Yeah. She came over to the CAAP side, as I like to say.
00:02:51
Are you a translator? Is that you speak two languages, you speak CAAP and you speak agency? I do, yes. Yeah. That's a good way to put it.
00:02:59
And I think both Erika and Georgia are good examples of. One of the things that I talk about in terms of creating team is that I knew in order to be successful as an association, we needed somebody with more context than what our existing team had. We needed somebody who had. I hate this phrase, but I don't know what else to say it. Boots on the ground perspective about.
00:03:19
Right. The day in and day out. Because if we were going to work on some of the projects that we're working on, we needed somebody with that kind of context. So I'm. No one is more thankful than I am than Georgia came over to come and work for the association.
00:03:32
From the moment that we first chatted, I was like, I don't know what the role is going to be, but. And Georgia, I don't think I said this out loud, but eventually I did. I was like, I don't know if you know this, but you're going to come work over here one day. Fingers crossed. Yeah.
00:03:46
I don't know. I think my husband might be, like, right up there with you, and excited that I'm working here now.
00:03:54
And Erika, what about you? Yep. So I'm Erika Carpin, director of operations. I've been here since 2022, so about three years. At CAAP, I work on a wide array of things.
00:04:09
I oversee our TTA, so I help with operations logistics of our cohort calls, webinars, Conferences, Summit. I also implemented our CRM and managed the marketing team along with Heather. So I do a little bit of everything and I'm really excited to be here. It's funny to be on this side of the podcast. I'm normally scheduling and working with picking guests for the podcast, so it's exciting to be on this side.
00:04:37
Well, thank you both for being vulnerable to be here. What's it feel like to be on the hot seat, Erika? It's exciting. She says through her teeth. She's extremely excited.
00:04:52
Yeah, well, and I just. I'm going to say this about Erika as well. I think, you know, again, I'm a firm believer in, like, once you find your people, you bring them along with you or you help to find them other opportunities. And again, right we knew we needed somebody internally to help manage just operations pieces. And I had had the great fortune of working with Erika, another organization.
00:05:12
I'm so thankful that, similar to Georgia, that she decided to take the leap of faith and come over and work with CAAP. So me too. Thank you. Part of the secret sauce of our team. These two, for sure.
00:05:24
Oh, wow. So with that, let's jump into the thick of things. Heather, you want to kick us off here? You want me to kick us off? What do you want to do?
00:05:31
Yeah, I mean, let me tee up since, you know, this is. This is all about managing up. And I have to be honest, I wasn't sure what managing up meant. This is the first time that I'm hearing of managing up. So by definition, we have here, managing up means building a strong, effective relationship with your boss by understanding their goals, communicating well, and helping them and let's be honest, yourself succeed.
00:06:04
So that's textbook definition of managing up. But from your unique perspectives, Erika and Georgia, what does it mean to you to manage up? Erika, do you want to go first? Sure. Yep, I can go first.
00:06:19
So for me, when I say manage up, and I think Beck, I don't know, maybe you coined this term, but. I don't think so. This is not like I know it exists out there somewhere in business lingo. So at some point I. The first one I heard it from, we'll say that.
00:06:34
Um, and so for me, managing up is really around having that positive relationship with your manager and understanding each other's goals and priorities, and then also kind of keeping them in check so they know what you're working on and so that you can align together and be on the same kind of path together. So. And then in order for you all to be successful. Right. So.
00:07:02
So really understanding needs and priorities of each other, the manager and the staff, and then keeping in line and keeping updated on each other's progress. Georgia, you have to have heard this before. I feel like I have, and I feel like I've been managing up my entire career in some way or another. Yeah. So I think just kind of building on top of what Erika said, I think the other thing that I would add is really just helping leadership, whether they're your direct leadership or even further above you, moving forward and recognizing that they need to do the pieces that might not be the pieces that come most natural to them.
00:07:46
So if you have a really strategic leader, sometimes that means helping them to focus on the nitty gritty details that they need to pay attention to, or if you have somebody who likes to be in the weeds, trying to help them to step back and say, like, timeout, we need to think about like the big picture vision here and just making sure that all the pieces fit together and that they're seeing those areas gently where they're, they're missing the organization is missing and making sure that it all ends up happening. Yeah, absolutely. So I appreciate both of those descriptions. I think part of what we spend a lot of time here at CAAP as a management team talking about is strengths. And so for me, right, I know that my, one of my top strengths are strategy and ideation.
00:08:43
And I will be the first to admit that I like big ideas. Right. I'm going to conquer the world one day and take over all the things. And I can appreciate that for me, right. That can be very frustrating to the people who are, you know, like Erika, for you, right.
00:09:02
Your job is to really create the structure in which those ideas exist. And so I think we'll just say out loud that for me, you know, within the idea of managing up, it's all the things that you've just said, it's the textbook. And then it's also, right, like I think helping an organization execute on the big ideas, at least for us, and also call me out and it's like, you know what, now's not the time for the big idea. So it's, you know, a piece of what you both just said there. But just want to recognize that I know that's where I can be a little frustrating as a CEO, as a supervisor, and I know that I've gotten that feedback in the past from other teams that I've managed as well.
00:09:40
So I'm just going to recognize that out loud. So the follow up question for both of you is what are some kind of concrete examples that you can point to that was a moment that you managed up and worked well. So could be here at CAAP, could be another organization, right? But a moment where you're like, here's a moment that I know it was sort of a perfect storm of the good pieces of relationships with a manager or a director or supervisor. Georgia, you've been doing this for 25 years.
00:10:12
Tell us a story about your managing up. Somebody that managed up to you as well. I think that that's absolutely also a really great example. Yeah. So I think that that one might be the easiest for me to answer without calling anybody out on the carpet.
00:10:30
Can change the names to protect the innocent. We've only worked so many places though. That's the problem. Don't Google us. Don't Google us.
00:10:38
Yeah, two big girl jobs. It's not that hard to figure out. So I think that for me, the biggest piece have been recognizing when I need to let go and delegate. And that's a skill that I struggle with greatly and have since I became a manager. So when I first became a manager, I was the youngest person on the entire leadership team at the organization that I came from.
00:11:13
So of about 10, 12 people, was always the youngest person of the group and felt like I had to prove myself because of age also and so hated to ask for that assistance from anybody. And so it really took my administrative assistant primarily, but then some of my other colleagues from that leadership team, like, flat out saying, like, hey, you need to let us do xyz. It might not be on our job description right now, but. But you're going to kill yourself trying to do all these things. And we're here to help.
00:11:53
And so those moments of them saying, like, listen to us, we're here, really helped me to grow that skill some. I'm still not perfect at it by any means. I have a long way to go. But it definitely was a learning thing for me that I didn't need to do it all in order to be seen as the leader that they were willing to jump in and help. Yeah.
00:12:18
Well, and I think that's part of the. One of the biggest challenges that we talk about at CAAP is in delegation of responsibilities and how we try to push administrative tasks to folks that that's their primary responsibility. Right. Because we're a relatively small team and having supervised teams of, you know, as few as, I think four people to as many as, you know, over 100 direct and indirect reports, I think it's. It makes or breaks your ability as a leader.
00:12:45
And for just for some context, remind us. And I'm not asking for your ages to be clear, but just for our listeners. Right. How long have you been a manager in some capacity or like. Right.
00:12:57
Roughly. Right. What age should you become a manager? Because I know for me, and we talk about this a lot, we talk about training for new managers, is that we don't become managers because we're good managers. We become managers rock stars at our jobs, and we find ourselves with promotions, which ends up leading us to a place where we're managing people.
00:13:13
And so I know that there's a little bit of a difference for both of you in terms of your amount of time that you've been managing folks. Yes. So for me, it's been probably about 13, 14 years now. I was in my, like, early to mid-30s, but I went from managing nobody to being in a situation where 90% of the organization was either directly or indirectly reporting to me. So that was a huge shift.
00:13:45
Yeah. And something that we talked about when you came here. Right. About getting some time and space from not managing people. Because it takes a toll on you, regardless of how great your team is.
00:13:59
It's just you give a lot of yourself in a leadership role, particularly when you care, which I know that you do. Yeah, definitely. So, Erika, some context for everybody that's listening in terms of the time that you've been manager. I've been a manager for around six to eight months. Ish.
00:14:15
We'll say. Yeah, not very long. Which is part of the reason that I think the both of you are really great guests for this, for this context, because you're both managing at this point, different time frames of managing, but also. Right. You've had to manage up to people that you've worked with for a long time, because you've all worked for people for a long time as well.
00:14:38
So, Erika, do you have an example in particular that you want to kind of call out in a moment? That's worked really well. I would say planning the conference and the summit is a good example. Beck, like he said, has these big, grand ideas for all of these events, and I'm happy to execute on those. But we do have to get into the nitty gritty occasionally and get into those details.
00:14:59
And so consistently, like, following up with him and making him sit down and look at those details so that we can make sure they are. Our T's are crossed, i’s are dotted. So that has been something that's really, I think, helped our working relationship in a way that has been beneficial for both of us. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:24
Well, I think you and I recently recorded an episode that we talked about just how backed up my email was and how, you know, I was working a ridiculous number of hours and just couldn't get out of my own way. And I think I said to you in that. In that recording, something to the effect of right now that I've sort of given myself back some time. I find myself being far more responsive than I've been in almost three years, frankly. Yeah, it's called capacity.
00:15:55
Yeah. Yeah, it's called capacity. You know, you can't pour from an empty cup. Right. You can't.
00:16:02
You can't operate from a full email box. Right. So what's. What's beautiful about this conversation is. Okay, I'm an entrepreneur and I have a team of.
00:16:12
We're a team of six now. So what? It was me in the beginning. Now to a team of six. The whole delegation thing, that's real.
00:16:21
Yeah. Not just in a management position, but also an entrepreneur. You know, we're holding all these things. We got to do it all ourselves. I might as well do it anyways, you know, so that's a muscle that you must continue to flex.
00:16:32
I'm. I've gotten way better at delegating today than I was, you know, when I started my team. Oh my gosh, five years ago.
00:16:42
Eight years in business, five years with my, with my team. But I have a question. Managing up, right? Like we had the definition, but is that really just to step up? Are we just stepping up?
00:16:55
What do you think? Yes. No, Mindy, step up. I think it comes down to. And actually I'm going to be quiet for a second.
00:17:00
I'm going to say Georgia and Erika, you answer that question and I'll give my perspective. I think it's stepping up with purpose and with clarity of knowing how to properly communicate with your manager or whoever is above you that you're working with in a way that is going to resonate with them. So knowing their communication styles, knowing what their goals are so that you can connect to them. And so when you do those things, you help to make it more meaningful to them. And it doesn't seem like nagging.
00:17:38
It's more of a this is just something we need to do to move forward. Let's talk through it. As opposed to the. Did you remember to do this?
00:17:49
Did you do this yet? Have you done this? Like that's. That type of thing. Yeah.
00:17:53
Okay. Yeah. I would also add like bringing solutions instead of just presenting the problem. So here's our problem, here's our challenge. But here are a few solutions that I've thought of can be helpful too.
00:18:06
Yeah, yeah. And I think the other thing is that, you know, we talk a lot in management about as we learn and we hone our skills and we learn about different communication styles and we're taught, if you're lucky enough to go to management leadership training, you're taught about changing your style of communication as a manager to meet your employees needs and. Yes, absolutely. But workplace culture, you know, creates an environment where everybody provides for the culture of the organization. It's not just about what I do, but not what I.
00:18:34
Not what I do. It's about what we all do. And there has to be a middle ground. We have to Meet each other in the middle. And to me, it's creating a relationship with your team that like, right, if I'm being a jerk, Erika or Georgia or whoever can be like, you know, Beck, you're being a jerk.
00:18:50
Stop it. It's helping an idea. It's being a good thought partner, an idea to be like, hey, have you thought about it this way? This is a really great idea. But have you thought about maybe adding this?
00:19:00
Or what if we do this instead? Right. It's everybody helping an organization to be successful because we all have a role to play. And I think the other thing here is that, and I'm curious on your all's perspective about whether or not we really, truly feel this way. We have very clear workplace culture behavior standards within CAAP.
00:19:24
And so one of those is saying that it's okay to say I don't have capacity to do this, and that that is okay to say out loud, which, you know, I think. I don't know that I've ever worked anywhere that I was allowed to say that. And actually it was respected. Right? But that's one of the standards.
00:19:47
And I think within the context of the managing up, you know, concept and behaviors, it's really, really important because I know that I've said I don't have capacity, and I know that that's respected. And I know that for the both of you at least, I feel like that's also been respected from. From my side. So I'm curious about if you feel like that's. Do you feel like the full team really understands that and it's okay to say no?
00:20:16
I'm just curious. Like, it's just coming to my mind as we're kind of talking. I think so personally, I mean, I must. My head's in the sand too, but for me, I feel like that's the case. I mean, especially with just the way we've been able to build rapport with one another over time.
00:20:36
It's not just the, I don't have capacity for that work right now. It's also the I don't have mental capacity right now, or give me 15 minutes or give me until tomorrow morning just to wrap my head around it. And by your being vulnerable with that at times and the rest of us having those opportunities to say, like, look, this is happening right now. I just need some space. It's showing other members of the team that, you know what, if they can do it, I can do it too.
00:21:07
And nothing's happening to them, so nothing's going to happen to me. Yeah, yeah. I think the team understands that. I would also add workplace culture stems from leadership. Right.
00:21:19
Leadership team. And I think if we have a very open, honest, in my opinion, workplace. And so I think that allows to a fault sometimes. Yeah, we might be a little tmi. Crying over happiness and joyful for being on the CAAP team, but I think like, that stems from leadership.
00:21:43
And I think if people don't feel that way, then they are less likely to manage up. Right. Because they don't feel like they can express their challenges or express feedback, give feedback to their manager because they might not be heard. And so I think that the sense of culture that we have at CAAP also really empowers people to manage up. Yeah, yeah.
00:22:04
And for any information on how Beck leads, check out our last podcast episode. Or check me out on LinkedIn or check out shameless promotion here. Absolutely. Check him out on LinkedIn. Hey, one more follow-up question to this.
00:22:19
Do you have to be a manager to manage up? No, no, no. Anyone? Anyone in the team can manage up? Yes.
00:22:29
And I think there's again, I think there are leaders who are willing to listen and there are leaders who are not willing to listen. And I think part of managing up is being able to. So as a co, as a previously as a coo, I think thinking about this in context of different multiple experiences where I was a coo, it's being able to see the day-to-day ahead of your CEO, right? And saying, oh, here are some big potholes that are coming, and I know this person doesn't see them and I need to point them out. And if they don't listen, how do I prepare to support that leader when we hit the speed bump and hope that it doesn't happen?
00:23:17
Right. And so I think part of this is, again, it goes back to I need to help this team be as successful as I can and this manager be as successful as I can. And naturally, I would hope that any leader is trying to create a team that skill sets match, line up in a way that benefit the entire team. Georgia is skilled in places where I am not. Erika is skilled in places I am not.
00:23:48
Collectively, we form one brain. There's a reason why I've been really thoughtful in looking at skill sets of a team. And naturally, right. I know Georgia's gonna see things coming that I'm not, and so I need her to do that. But not every leader is gonna be willing to hear it.
00:24:05
And so sometimes you've gotta do it in a way where, like, I've been in experiences where I have to manage my supervisor, literally, Right. Like, okay, we need to talk about these things. I'm gonna force you to sit down and listen to this and understand these things and hopefully, right. I'm going to say it so many times it's going to stick in your brain.
00:24:27
Sometimes that's, that's just the brass tacks of it. And that can also. And I think this leads to the next question. Sometimes that can get you into trouble. Right.
00:24:35
Like, I know that I've pushed on leaders' egos before. So I'm curious for the both of you, has there ever been a moment where you feel like you've stumbled in managing up? You've been like, oh, I've gotten a little too close to this. And again, I know that, right. Like, we've only had so many experiences and I, you know, change the names to protect the innocent.
00:24:53
So if you don't want to answer the question, that's okay. But, like, has there been a moment where you've been like, yeah, I stepped in it.
00:25:01
And Heather, I'm curious for you too. Because I'm thinking, yeah, I mean, I. Think there's definitely been moments where leadership has been hesitant to accept what's being said. And then it's maybe not taken very well, but still left knowing, like, I did the right thing and whether or not they accepted what I had said, at least I said it. And in that case, instead of a managing up, it might have been a cya.
00:25:31
So that when it came back and bit us in the butt, at least nobody could say, well, you didn't tell me.
00:25:39
But yeah, that's probably, I think, the biggest thing of that one. Yeah, cya, by the way, that's cover your booty. Yeah, exactly.
00:25:49
I'm trying to think of an example for me, but. No, go ahead, Erika. Yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say early on, I feel like I didn't always recognize the importance of, like, me communicating up to my manager. I always thought it had to come from the top down.
00:26:05
And so it took me a little bit of time to understand that I can bring feedback and comments, and my input to meetings and to my manager. So that's kind of where I've stumbled managing up in kind of a different capacity. But it was a learning curve for me to understand that I also had a voice. Right. And people wanted to hear it and I could bring my thoughts to the discussion as well.
00:26:34
Also, interesting fun fact about Erika. She also used to work for my wife, interestingly enough, who was her supervisor. Like, weird full circle moments Shout out. To Ashley, keeping the family. It's true.
00:26:49
So I got a thought on this. I got a thought on this because I. When I was a first manager, I was also in my early to mid-30s, I think it was like, I don't know, 33 or so, 34. And I was. Yeah, I had a team of like four or five, so I didn't know what the heck I was doing.
00:27:04
I was like, let's. Let's all be friends and we got to get stuff done. But that's. I think that's sort of my management style, and I'm sure I stepped in it plenty of times. I will say this, though, at my team at Holloway Media Services, you know, being such a small team, just like CAAP, we.
00:27:23
And we mentioned it in this. In this conversation already. We talked about skill sets and communication styles. Now, up until recently, we didn't know what our. I mean, we know what our skill sets are, but we didn't know our communication style.
00:27:36
So we've gone through the disc profiles, we've done Acumax, and because of. We've gotten all of this information on how we learn, how we work, neural pathways in our brain. I mean, we've gone deep. Now I have language, and I understand how Jacque, Amy, Joe works because I have that language, and that language builds confidence. So I'm at.
00:28:02
So I'm wondering if, at CAAP, have you taken any of those assessments and. Or. And then do you use that to, like, train your managing and managing up? Yeah, I think the gap here is that we don't. We don't necessarily.
00:28:15
I think fully. I think we do and we don't. Like. I don't think there's any formal training through this perspective. I think we sort of do it in a way that's aligned.
00:28:28
I don't know. Georgia and Erika, if you want to talk a little bit about this and some context for what we do and how we do it. Yeah. So when a new employee is onboarded to CAAP, they take the StrengthsFinder, and so they go through that, and then they meet with a consultant who kind of walks them through their results. And then we get a new team map to see how we all kind of line up against each other.
00:28:54
And then we typically do a team meeting to onboard that new staff and talk about how we all relate or where our strengths are, where our weaknesses are and all those things. And then. Yeah, I think that's. Georgia. Sorry.
00:29:07
Yeah, no, that's. I mean, exactly what we do here. I think the other thing for me is When I was in grad school, we did perceptive communications and so I was trained in that, that assessment. And it's really, that one's unique because not only is it how you like to be communicated with, you know, both receiving and how you think you're sharing information, but it's also others rating how they see that you are sharing information. And it's interesting when you see people where there's a disconnect there, and whether or not they're willing to accept that knowledge once they get it and how they respond to it really can do wonders with their relationships with their teams.
00:29:54
And I've seen that work really, really well with teams. And then I've seen it cause just a complete wall being built. When there's been individuals who have had that happen where they felt that they were sharing information one way, their team said no, like they were ranked here. The team said, you're way over here. And they were not willing to accept that.
00:30:19
And everybody else was wrong. So thankfully we don't have that here at CAAP. But I think it is something helpful to think about that, too. And Georgia is really good at that. I mean, it's one of the things that I know that when we've had to have difficult conversations, not with our team necessarily, but with partners or a difficult situation that we're kind of trying to work through, it's something that she's always able to provide really amazing context for.
00:30:47
I think, you know, within the training piece for our team and managers with StrengthsFinder. And we've done DiSC too. Sort of not the full deep dive in DiSC, but we've done sort of a, a surface level dive into DiSC.
00:31:01
I think it's some really interesting examples of what has helped some team members thrive. I'm not going to share any names, but. Right. We have one particular team member who context is one of their strengths. And so in the, in the, you know, vibe of sort of context, it's basically like you have to be able to provide detail about why something is relevant.
00:31:23
You have to understand, right. You have to help that person understand about the detail of why this project links here or. Right. If I give you a task of doing something, I need some details as to why that task matters and how it weaves into the greater, greater good. And in one particular, you know, situation we had a team member who was really thriving with one manager and maybe not thriving with another manager.
00:31:48
And what was missing there was context. And once, you know, in Georgia, right, as the manager of this person, as they provided context, you see that person just continuing to really emerge and do amazing work and thrive and do just great things. And so I think it showed that particular example really shows, right. How understanding somebody's strengths and once you harness that thing, they flourish. Yeah, well, and I think the other thing too is matching people who don't have the same strengths.
00:32:21
And the diversity of strengths that we have on our team, I think is what really makes us so great at everything that we do. And I mean, even if you look at Mel and I as working together, we joke that, you know, what you said earlier about the three of us, like, the two of us can make a whole person. Because when you look at our strengths, we are exact opposites. Like, where she has everything high, I am low and vice versa. And so.
00:32:47
But together we can come up with some pretty cool stuff. Yeah, well, and Mel's another good example, I think, of somebody who, right. Like, she has high woo. So if you Google about StrengthsFinder and you learn about woo, it's right. Like, basically the person who's like the hype person.
00:33:04
Right? Like, everything is great, everything is wonderful, everything is awesome. And they're going to make sure to help shout it from the rooftops. And for the team, it was interesting. I think I said to Erika and Georgia at one point, I was like, trying to share all this great news, and it's just like, womp, womp, sad trombone.
00:33:22
Nobody's excited. We need some woo on this team. Like, I don't have enough woo, woo in my strength. I don't know where it is in my order, but, like, we need somebody with some woo. And then when Mel came on the team, you're like, oh, she's got all the woo for the whole team.
00:33:33
There it is. Mel's the one who's, like, excited and happy about all the things. So it's interesting to see also how sometimes those strengths are so absolutely evident and then other times, like, they're just, you know, lurking behind the surface. But, like, I think it's. I use the example, I think, similar to.
00:33:53
This is right, like, when I plan a vacation, I, like, create a spreadsheet and I detail, right, like, how long it's going to take to get from here to here. And, like, we could not go there. But, like, I want to know, like, do they have food or don't they have food? Because I don't want to be spending time googling, sitting in the car when we're trying to decide what to do, what's to do next. Now in work life, I am not the most detail-oriented person.
00:34:14
Interesting. So I think it's also like you have to understand the pieces of your team in terms of like how that particular strength is going to show up in the workplace. And sometimes it, you think it's going to be really evident, and then other times not. There are certain things I'm ridiculously detail-oriented about at work, but it's nothing that anybody would would necessarily guess it's about. So.
00:34:38
So we'll shift a little bit when I ask a couple more questions before we get too far along here. So when you think about, I think this question is really specifically for you. How do you think that, what are some tactics in terms of getting your team or team members to better understand their manager's priorities, communication style and goals? Are there some tactical things that you would point to? Because maybe not every agency can afford a DiSC or a strengths or an Acumax.
00:35:14
So how do we do it if we can't do that? Right. Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, I think the most obvious one would be ask if you're comfortable doing that. And just flat out ask how do you want to get information?
00:35:25
What do you want us to focus on? But more than that, I think it's paying attention. So when you're having conversations with them, what are the things that you're doing where they're grabbing on to what you're saying and they're nodding along and they're saying, yep, okay. And they're agreeing with you and you're moving forward with that conversation versus what are the things that you're doing where they're, you know, you're losing them. You can tell.
00:35:55
Eyes are rolling, their thoughts are drifting. You know, if you have somebody who's a very direct communicator and you start with the hey, how's it going? How's the family? You're going to lose them before you even start the conversation. So just paying attention to those types of things and trying different things out until you find the ones that work, and then going into those conversations prepared for those types.
00:36:21
So it might not be the way you like to communicate, but you know how they want to receive that communication. I think that's the important thing. And then as far as goals and strategies and everything that they might be on focused, pay attention to where they spend their time. I think that's a huge thing. If they're spending all of their time in a certain area, that's probably a really big goal for them.
00:36:41
And that should be an area where you could focus and support too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think naturally we lean into things that we really like. Typically.
00:36:51
Yeah. And we, you know, for me, I procrastinate on the things I don't like to do. Same. I think it's natural. Right. That's.
00:36:58
That's human nature, right? Absolutely. And so I think that's. That's a really good, I think, tip. I want to back up for a minute and go back to kind of the culture of the organization, if we.
00:37:07
If we can. Heather and I visit another question, because I think a lot of times in human services work, we. I know when I do trainings on workplace culture, I'll get this question about. We have folks who either are not willing to move to a virtual environment in any way, shape or form because of the fear of how are we going to keep the team connected. And then you have other folks who have started to try to play around with different work styles and environments in which employees work, and they're trying to figure out how to maintain strong workplace culture in a virtual environment.
00:37:37
And so for Georgia and Erika and for you, Heather, because your team also operates in a virtual environment, what are some things that I think have become really crystallized and important for how to continue to form that sense of team? And for us at CAAP, I think, you know, we see each other maybe as a collective twice a year at best. We might see each other, you know, individually three times a year, but we really just, you know, generally we operate within a little box, a little plastic box that we see each other a lot on the day-to-day, but physically in person. And so it can. That shocks people, I think, a lot of times.
00:38:15
And when they see us physically right in a space together about how well we function. So what are the things that you feel like are really important within this framework of both managing your team and managing up that have created that environment for us? I can go first. I feel like for me, at CAAP, we. Georgia mentioned not kind of if someone is a direct communicator to jump right into the work.
00:38:40
But I think at CAAP, we've kind of created a culture where when we have meetings, we start out with a little bit of some personality, like conversation. What'd you do over the weekend? How's your pet? Whatever the questions are, to kind of just understand each other outside of work and what we like to do and where, like, where we spend our time. So I think that really helps us as a team.
00:39:02
And then we also. Mel and her woo has started our team meetings and she asks questions. So we go around the team for the team meeting, and we answer her questions. So they can be anything from. I think it was like, where.
00:39:19
What's your favorite travel spot? I don't know. Remind me of a few if. If y' all think of any, but just fun questions that she thinks of and adds to our team meeting. And then we also talk about a little bit about our work and our goals for the week or whatever that looks like.
00:39:35
So I think that has really helped also to create that sense of connection across the team. And that also creates, like, sidebar conversations in the chat and just funny memes going and all the things. So I think that's been really helpful just to create that sense of community and connection. There was one team meeting in particular. I had not turned off my notifications.
00:39:58
I was out that day, and I kept getting a notification on my phone from teams, and I'm like, what is happening in this team meeting? Like, getting messages about people crying and, like, it was tears of, you know, I think appreciation and acknowledgement of some sadness that was happening on the team. It was just like, all the emotions in this chat. And I think I messaged Erika Georgia, like, what? Is everybody okay?
00:40:21
Like, I don't know what is going on, but I am. I think I'm concerned. I'm not sure if I should be concerned, but it is. It feels like you're sitting. Literally sitting in a room with each other.
00:40:31
I mean, I think that's changed. Like, 9am and I was crying on a team meeting. So on a Monday morning, I think everybody was. And we had one team member that was their first meeting, and we were like, yeah, this is not normally how we start out, but it worked. And it was mostly appreciation.
00:40:51
It also was a little bit of just feeling what everything everybody had been going through recently, too. So same. I mean, I was off a couple of weeks ago on vacation, Same thing. Hadn't turned my things off, and it was hilarious. I'm sitting on my couch and I'm watching these things come in.
00:41:07
And, like, I think I actually messaged back. Like, the only thing more entertaining than not than being in the meeting is sitting here trying to guess what's going on around the chat that's happening because it's. It was great. So I think the other thing, too, is, like, the walking challenge that we're doing right now. I mean, the competition that has come out of this walking challenge just in week one.
00:41:29
I didn't know. I can't even imagine what's going to happen for the rest of the summer. Maybe you cannot. I knew that, like, it would. People would be excited about it.
00:41:38
But the competitive nature of this team. Oh, yeah. I mean, it shouldn't surprise me because we're all high achievers. But seriously, Heather, like, I've got somebody who's telling me, like, I will not be in last, right? And I see this particular person, Matt, who won last week's challenge that, you know, he's got 22,000 steps at the end of the day.
00:41:59
And I'm just walking around my bedroom until 11 o' clock at night because I will not let him win today. And I'm just like, all right, get it. Like, I'm happy with my, you know, 5,500 today. Multiple people with like 20,000 plus steps a day. I'm like, how does this happen?
00:42:16
Here's me trying to get to my 5,000 in a row of the grass. Like, what's going on here? Yeah. They all had a Hersheypark or something. I mean, where are they getting these steps in?
00:42:30
I mean, yes, that's my weekend. That's what I was doing to try to get my steps in because we've got season passes. But so for some context for our listeners, we launched a step challenge. So anybody who didn't have a fitness tracker, we, you know, offered to buy them an inexpensive fitness tracker. And then Jen put together my executive assistant.
00:42:45
Shout out to Jen, who is unsung hero of CAAP always. I don't know what I did before her, but she put together some framework around it and some prizes. And so there's weekly prizes, there's monthly prizes, and we have kind of like goals every week and then the three month goal. But collectively last week, what it was at 192,000 steps that the team did. I think Mel figured out we could have walked across Pennsylvania.
00:43:11
Yeah. Yep. As a team. That's how many steps as a team. And there's only 14 of us.
00:43:16
Right. So it's. That's bananas. But yeah, it has like sparked the competitive, the competitive nature of this team like no other. But I love that everybody's like leaned into it and gotten excited about it and like cheering each other on.
00:43:33
I got a message from Jen over the weekend. She's like, I woke up and her mother lives with her and she's like, my mom already said, like, I've already walked 2000 steps, you better get on it.
00:43:47
Even her mom is in on it now. It's a thing. That's awesome. That's inspiring. We don't have challenges at Holloway Media Services
00:43:55
And I'm implementing it right now. It's happening. We're gonna do that. But talking about managing up for us, you know, in my, like, listen, I'm, I'm a first generation, first generation entrepreneur. I don't know what I don't know.
00:44:08
And I only had a brief stint of managing for, I don't know, two years. So now that I have a team, we weren't even doing like one on one meetings. Like, I'm sorry Amy, I'm late to the game. I'm a late bloomer. But we're getting there.
00:44:21
But between like putting things in, like Asana, even Asana helped Amy and the team manage up to bring ideas or situations or things, problems that need to be solved to me. But now we have weekly one-on-ones with every team member. Of course we have a weekly team meeting, but I'm more active and that can be so challenging when we're all virtual. But it's really refreshing to hear that you all keep it close as if you're walking down the hallway, you know, and adding in these fun challenges. I think that brings in, remember we're human beings, not human doings.
00:45:01
Human connection. Yeah, and human connection. But Erika, to really quickly to follow up on that social connection. On my AcuMax, I'm looking at it right now. I'm at what's called a high B, which means I want social connection.
00:45:13
So before I, even before we get to the nitty gritty, I need to know if you're okay and I need you to ask me if I'm okay. Yeah, then we can get into business. But unless and until that happens, I'm like, I don't have a connection to you yet. So starting off every meeting with how, hey, how we doing for five, at least five, 10 minutes, you know, has been really great for us. So to that end, Erika, can you give us some examples of some of your favorite strategies for keeping your manager kind of informed and managing up to them without overwhelming them?
00:45:45
Because I think some of the things that Heather just mentioned, I know that you've implemented here at CAAP and so if you want to speak to some of those things and other things that you do on a day to day basis to manage yours truly. So how to manage Beck? All right, let's do it. Lots of coffee. Yeah.
00:46:05
So we have one-on-one meetings like you kind of mentioned, Heather. We do have one on ones and I feel like those are really beneficial as much as I can. I try to bring my questions and challenges there and not inundate his inbox. Because like you mentioned earlier, it's, it's insane. I know it's better, but it's insane still.
00:46:22
So I do try to hold off on mentioning things until those one-on-one meetings and then we can really get down to the nitty gritty. I try to be respectful of his time because he is so busy, but really try to get clear on our priorities at those meetings so that we know how to move forward. I also have learned from working with Beck over the past few years how he likes to view things, how he likes things to be, to be displayed. And I feel like I've kind of been able to, I think, I hope you agree, Beck, anticipate your needs. So I try through conversations we have and meetings and things like that, try to prep whatever it looks like, data or a document, whatever those those things are, prep them ahead of time and send them to him ahead of time before he asks so that it's there when he is ready to look at it.
00:47:15
He can look at it. He doesn't have to look at it, but it is there if he wants it. And so those are a few of the strategies I use. We also, like you mentioned, Heather, we implemented Asana recently, this year. And so that's another really cool tool to be able to kind of project, manage and assign tasks to him.
00:47:32
He's finally getting in there and learning Asana. So it's very exciting. And I think that's a great tool to manage. Manage tasks and manage Beck. Yeah, I mean, I think yes, a million times over.
00:47:45
I mean, I am someone that admittedly. And Erika, Yes. You do this markedly well. You can tell me, like, we're talking about conference this morning. Like we had our one-on-one this morning and I was like, you know, she's like, we're gonna talk about conference kind of the schedule.
00:47:57
And I'm like, before the words are even out of my mouth, she's like, and here's the link for the schedule to see it. Because if you tell me what the schedule, I can't, I literally cannot visualize. My brain does not work that way. I'm not going to pay attention. If you just rattle off all the things, I'm not going to pay attention.
00:48:11
It's not because of you, it's just because it's the way my brain functions. And if I took my ADHD medicine, maybe I can visualize it a little bit better. But like, if I don't see it, it's just not going to click. And sometimes admittedly, like, I need to stare at it for a while, but Erika will drop a couple things in my inbox, like she said, and that if I have time, I do, and if I don't, I don't. And that is so freaking appreciated.
00:48:37
So appreciated. Real MVP, Erika. Real MVP. Oh, I don't know about that, but I've learned a lot about working with Beck in the last few years, so. But that's the thing.
00:48:46
Becoming aware. Yeah. And that. I mean, you can become aware of things and not do it. You're becoming aware of it, and you're taking aligned action, so.
00:48:52
And that's what makes. Makes CAAP, and you guys just such a magical team. I just adore seeing you in person at, you know, the two live events. Just seeing. Seeing the camaraderie.
00:49:05
You really care, and it's just beautiful to see. So you got a good thing going on there. I think I said to Georgia when she first came on board, I was like, hey, I'm about to say something to you, and I know it's probably going to sound, like, super toxic, and it's not meant super toxic. It's meant from a true place of caring, but can you please text me when you get home? Because I'm going to worry about you.
00:49:28
And so, like, I genuinely care. I'm gonna have an anxiety attack if you. It takes you a very long time to get from Harrisburg to Erie, so if you could just do me a favor and text me so that I, you know, can sleep tonight, I'd appreciate it. And so sometimes they text now, and I don't even have to ask. And then other times they don't, and I just am hopeful that they're okay.
00:49:49
I had to wait till the morning. That's in panic mode. Try to remember. Everyone alive. I just need to know you're alive.
00:49:58
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And sometimes it's not even when we're traveling for work, like, when he knows we're traveling for vacation and stuff, too. It's like, well, just let me know when you get there, please. I mean, look, my.
00:50:11
My. My work family is my family. I mean, I think, like, I'm sure, you know, y' all can appreciate this, but for a long time, you know, my work people were my chosen family. Right? Like, I spent so much time with work people, and it's just.
00:50:27
I spend more time with you all than I do the majority of my family. So something happens to one of you, like, you're. I'm gonna. I feel responsible for you. I know I'm not, but I feel responsible for you.
00:50:43
I say this all the time when I do workplace culture discussion. Like, I don't. We need to invite each other to every birthday party. We don't have to invite each other to our family reunions. That would be weird.
00:50:51
But, like, I think natural human connection is important. Recognizing. Right. Us as humans. Heather.
00:50:58
Right. Like, I think it's all part of. Yeah, I just think it's all part of all of it. What else is there? Right.
00:51:07
Yeah. Right. We're floating on this burning rock in the middle of nowhere, so we might as well do it together and have some fun. So it's great that you can come together, service your agencies, who's serving the great state of Pennsylvania, and have joy doing it. We must find the joy doing it.
00:51:27
And I do see a lot of joy within your virtual walls and within the team. So I think we have time for probably two more questions. And so I think. Let me think about this for just a second here. Good.
00:51:44
I hope you have them, because I'm all out. No, I got. I got it. I got a couple here in the. In the.
00:51:50
In the pipeline.
00:51:54
What I think.
00:51:57
So let's. Let's get a little, little deep here. Has there been a time here at CAAP to even, like, I gotta call Beck out about something or I gotta call another supervisor out about something that you've been like, I don't necessarily know how to approach this. And so this is the approach that you took. And what.
00:52:16
What kind of go. When you do have to do that, what are some of the steps that it takes in your mind to think through how you're going to have that conversation? And I think we've been blessed to not necessarily have too many of those moments.
00:52:34
And, you know, I think that also has made it easier when we have had some blips where. Right. Like something hasn't happened in the way that maybe I thought it was going to happen. And part of that was because I didn't clarify enough. Right.
00:52:46
And accepted the fact that, like, you know, this was a miss on my part too. Right. Like, that we didn't execute on this or didn't get this done. Like, I didn't clarify who was supposed to finish something or get it over the finish line. But anything come to mind about.
00:52:58
Right. Like how that has happened for us at any given point? There may not be any examples. I don't know. I'm trying to think of a couple.
00:53:10
So nothing about specific example, but I'm thinking about, like, steps to take. And to me, the first one is like, knowing where the person 1 having a full understanding of the situation and what happened. So you're not just going in with like pointing fingers or I think you have a pretty solid. This is what happened. And going back to what Erika said earlier in these are my proposed solutions on how we're going to fix this or how we already fixed it, which is the even better route to be able to go in and take if you can.
00:53:47
But then the other thing is knowing and paying attention when you're having those conversations. And I think we talked about that earlier, too. In this goes back to the vulnerability of the team and us being open about when we're having a rough day or moment or you know, that there's been a meeting, that the person's just going to need a little bit of time and it's not the best moment to drop a bombshell on them and paying attention to those things too. For me, those are usually what's ended up working out the best in situations in general. Yeah, I appreciate that.
00:54:23
Erika, what about you? Anything you want to lift up? I can't think of any examples.
00:54:29
I don't know. I mean, I can think of one. I don't know. Like, I don't remember the exact moment or what it was that we were working on, but I distinctly remember a moment where you came to me and you're like, I need to just own this because you don't have time and capacity, clearly. And you said it much kinder than what I'm about to describe.
00:54:53
To be clear, Eric wasn't like, all right, get shit together, Beck. Oh, see, I cussed. That was the first time I ever cussed on the pocket beep.
00:55:02
But you were like, look, like we have to do this, and the only way that that's gonna get done is if we push you out of the way. Right. And we'll focus on it. We're gonna consult you. But ultimately that was sort of right.
00:55:13
Like, what part I think was something conference planning or summit planning? It was an event specific plan. Yeah. And you're like, let us just do this. You don't need to be involved.
00:55:21
It's like, yeah, all right, that's fine. Yeah. And you, you trust us. And I feel like we have that relationship where it goes back and forth. You know, we trust each other and.
00:55:31
Yeah, yeah. So I think my last question is anything that you've. Either one of you has sort of changed in your leadership style because of feedback that you've received from someone on your team, really managing up effectively. Anything in particular that you want to call out for me?
00:55:56
I would say again, I've only been really managing for a few months, but the importance of those regular check-ins, I guess, early on I kind of assumed that staff would speak up when they had issues or concerns. And I really had to learn to check in and proactively ask if they need assistance or how they're doing, what they need from me, what can I do differently, all of those things. And so that's something that I've had to kind of learn and adjust over the last few months is really just creating that open honesty space for them to be able to manage up. Right. And so, yeah, that's something that I've learned.
00:56:39
Yeah. I think for me, the delegation piece that I talked about earlier is probably the biggest one. But then I think also just that what we were talking about too earlier, about the being human and the open and the space for the how is the family, how are the kids, those types of things coming from an environment where that wasn't always the case, it was hit or miss, it depended on the person and your individual relationship with that where here I feel like we try to make that opportunity for everybody and it goes a long way. Like you said earlier, we're not inviting people to birthday parties, but we at least, you know, know a little bit about each other's families and the composition at least, like who has kids, who has pets, et cetera. Milestones.
00:57:35
Right, Right. Yeah. We know when people's birthdays are. Right? Right?
00:57:39
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then I guess so I lied. I am going to ask one more question. When we.
00:57:47
I think part of what you hit on here, Heather, is right, the one-on-one piece. More often than not, when I do trainings on this topic, I think one of the things that I see pretty often is that one-on-ones are just not the norm, particularly in human services. And if you are the norm in this, kudos to you because I think more often than not, that's just not the case. I think just because so often in our world we see managers also still seeing clients and so the time and capacity just they feel like it's not there. And so when we think about creating this environment where people can effectively manage up and we create a space and.
00:58:24
Right. Like ego is checked at the door where managers understand. Right. Like if Erika comes to me and says, like Beck, I need you to get out of the way from the success of this. That's not a knock on my ego.
00:58:33
Right. It's just, no, I'm busy And she's trying to help me be more effective. And so, how do we think that for those out there listening who are managers and/or for people who aren't managers yet but are trying to manage up, how do we create environments where there can be some fixes in place? Is there anything in particular that's sort of like, right, the last thoughts, huggy heart of the matter, if you will.
00:59:00
But anything in particular about starting to create that environment? What's the first step? Anything else you want to mention? Do you have an open-door policy? Is it when you meet a new teammate, it's like, hey, if you're having issues, come at me.
00:59:18
Like, Erika being a new manager, right, six to eight months, what are you saying to your teammates? Like, hey, if you have something, come to me. Yeah, I've tried to say if they have questions, concerns, if I'm doing something a way that doesn't make sense to them, like, we don't all operate the same like we've talked about. And so if I'm managing a project in a way that doesn't make sense for their brain, we can rearrange, we can rework it again, back to Asana. We set up all of those projects and teams in Asana, but if that's not working for someone, let me know, and we can readjust.
00:59:51
Right. We're always learning and always realigning. And so I think just having that open, honest communication ahead of time is important. Yeah, yeah. I think for me it is that open door, but then also being honest when the door needs to close temporarily, because let's face it, we all need time to get work done.
01:00:11
And the way my brain works, it needs to be uninterrupted time if I'm going to do anything that's any sort of a deep dive. And so blocking that time on my calendar or saying like, hey, you know, today I've got this block, I really need time to focus on X. Can you make a list of all the questions and connect with me after, you know, this time or tomorrow morning or whatever. So, just that I think is huge, is putting those parameters around it so that your open door is huge. But at the same time, sometimes you do have to close it and letting them know why that it's not you're trying to push them out specifically.
01:00:53
It's just you need to get your own stuff done. Yeah, yeah, I think that's really fair. I mean, it's. I think people can react to that sometimes. And yeah, it's not personal, it's not that I don't want to talk to you.
01:01:05
It's just to the point earlier, I don't have capacity. I have to get this accomplished. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:11
Two questions I asked my teammates is, how can I help you today when we're in our one-on-ones or you know, what's one thing I can do to make your life better? And those questions usually. But they come ready too because they know I'm going to ask that. How can I help you? What are we working on?
01:01:25
You know, so, you know, language. Language plays a big part in this. So learning how to ask really great questions and. Yeah, go ahead, Beck. No, I was just going to say I think the other thing here is.
01:01:36
Right. Like to that point that Georgia made is that, you know, one of the things that at one point we got into the kind of danger zone we had. It was right around the beginning when I first joined CAAP. So Georgia, I don't think you were here yet, but we were. Had just implemented teams.
01:01:49
So. Right. The prior, prior to teams, we didn't have a platform to communicate with each other outside of email. And so implementing Teams tried to help create an infrastructure point where people just ask a casual question. We don't have desk phones.
01:02:05
Right. No one calls my cell phone. I don't want to text them. Right. Not everybody sits with their cell phone on their desk.
01:02:10
And so that infrastructure point was important to creating a starting block to operate from. And so. But it got to this point right, where it was overwhelming and stopping work. It was like Teams overload. And so we had to implement.
01:02:30
Right. Like it was like no teams Tuesday or no teams Thursday. It was like a week of no teams. Like we had to take a vacation from Teams. I think it was no Teams November.
01:02:37
Yeah, no Teams November. That's exactly what it was. And it was like for this month, you may not use Teams. If you have something that you need done, you have to communicate it in an email because tasks were getting lost. And it was.
01:02:54
And I. And I've said, you know, to the team now. Right. Like if you have something you need me to accomplish, it needs to be in an email. If you have a thought about something.
01:03:02
If you want to ask me a quick question, Teams is fine. But if you need me to accomplish a task and you put it in Teams, I will absolutely lose it. That is just me being honest. So I think for the fix it piece, like, if you find yourself that you're operating within. We all operated within so many different systems.
01:03:18
Like, right, Heather, with your team, we use Slack with our own team. We use teams now. We also use Asana if there's another platform that's out there. Like at one point I think I ran into a team that had just gone virtual and we had Skype, we had WebEx, we had email, we had something else we were using and I was just like, everything at once would ring and I'm like, and ping and ping. And I'm like, I am so overwhelmed.
01:03:47
So sometimes you also have to like put closer parameters around the communication methodology for your team to succeed. And not everybody can handle all of the things at once. Right? That's just too much. Any last thoughts anybody has?
01:04:04
Anything else that's sort of like running around in your brain that you want to make sure to share around this topic? Erika, I'm going to go to you first. Anything in particular? I don't think so. I think we covered it.
01:04:16
Georgia, anything from you?
01:04:20
I think we really did cover all. We covered a lot today. You went a whole like circle. I feel like that's true. Heather, any last thoughts?
01:04:31
Oh my gosh. I just think y' all are beautiful and I love your team and your dynamics and Holloway Media Services. Go stretch. Because the step challenge is coming. If anybody wants to see our step Challenge, feel free to reach out as a reminder to our listeners.
01:04:47
Right? If you're an agency that is a CAAP member, you get the benefit of one free training every year where we come to you. Or we can do a virtual session to talk about these types of topics about management, about leadership, coaching for your teams in particular. If you have new managers and, or if you have a problem and you need a, you need a solution, come to us. We're happy to talk about those needs.
01:05:07
Or if you're just a nonprofit that's listening, you're like, hey, we could benefit this from this reach out. We're always happy to help and connect you to some of our experts or our internal experts. So thanks everybody for joining and look forward to talking to you the next time on the Thinking CAAP. CAAP out. Till next time.
01:05:23
Bye bye. Thank you.
01:05:30
Thank you for being a part of this episode of the Thinking CAAP. Check the show notes for resources and links to other episodes, and don't forget to subscribe and follow to be notified when new episodes are released. If you have any Community Action questions you'd like Beck or one of our local experts to answer in a future episode, please email your questions about Community Action to info@theCAAP.org, subject line Thinking CAAP.
If you have any Community Action questions you’d like Beck or one of our local experts to answer in a future episode, please email your questions about Community Action to info@thecaap.org—subject line: Thinking CAAP.