Episode 224 · 19 August 2025 · 46:46
How to protect your people (and yourself) in uncertain times (Truth, Lies & Work x Nerd Journey)
How to protect your people (and yourself) in uncertain times (Truth, Lies & Work x Nerd Journey)
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Why uncertainty is the perfect word for the current climate
How entrepreneurs respond to challenge
Employment law, small businesses, and the 13th hire
Why more than half of managers aren't equipped to lead
Task cohesion and building systems that work
Leanne's redundancy story — and the managers you never fear
Psychological safety, intentional questions, and being quiet not loud
Show notes
How to Protect Your People (and Yourself) in Uncertain Times — A Truth, Lies & Work x Nerd Journey Crossover
This week on Truth, Lies & Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) are taking you behind the scenes of their recent two-part crossover with Jon White and Nick Korte, co-hosts of the brilliant Nerd Journey podcast.
In this special episode, Al and Leanne reflect on their marathon two-hour conversation with Jon and Nick — covering the hidden skills most managers never get taught, how to navigate career pivots without losing confidence, and why the best career stories come from mistakes and detours, not perfect planning.
They dig into what happens when you're expected to lead a large team in a flatter organization, why more than half of managers aren't equipped with the skills they need, and the practical steps you can take to protect your people — and yourself — when everything feels uncertain.
🎙️ The Crossover, Explained
Al and Leanne recently sat down with Jon White and Nick Korte, co-hosts of the Nerd Journey podcast — a show dedicated to bringing listeners the career advice the hosts wish they'd been given earlier in their careers.
The conversation ran for around two hours (which Leanne notes is a good thing — "it allows for conversation"). They've split it into two parts, and in this episode, Al and Leanne reflect on the highlights, the surprises, and the moments that mattered most.
Part 1 covers task cohesion, managing a larger team in a flatter organization, and navigating uncertainty. Part 2 digs into championing your people, role clarity for the individual contributor, and thriving in the chaotic world of work.
🔥 What We Cover
1. The hidden skills every great manager needs — and why most never get trained in them. More than half of managers aren't equipped with the skills they need to lead their people. And when managers aren't trained, they stay — and they get more people. Al's heard ratios of managers managing 15, even 20 people, with no extra time to actually manage.
2. How to navigate career pivots without losing confidence. Leanne shares her experience of being made redundant back in 2015 — "still one of the hardest things" — and reflects on what made the difference: a manager who helped her figure out how to move on, even in the midst of devastation.
3. The difference between being a "boss" and being a leader who actually develops people. If you get PTSD or anxiety when a manager books a call with you, your manager's not talking to you enough. The managers you're never afraid to hear from are the ones who've built trust before the hard conversations happen.
4. Why Jon and Nick believe the best career stories come from mistakes and detours. Not perfect planning. The detours are where the learning lives.
5. The surprising lessons from 300+ interviews with tech professionals. Two former IT operations guys who moved into pre-sales roles — they've seen patterns across hundreds of careers, and they know what separates thriving from just surviving.
💡 Key Takeaways
Make it a phone call. When you need to have a difficult conversation, don't hide behind email or Slack. A phone call — with intention, not performatively — changes everything.
Clarity is kindness. Even saying "just wondering if you've got five minutes" can trigger anxiety if the relationship isn't there. Build the connection before you need it.
Being quiet is not being loud. The best leaders aren't the loudmouths. They're the ones who listen, who ask intentional coaching questions, and who create the conditions for psychological safety.
Your 13th hire changes everything. For small businesses, that's when you start to see the systems and processes gaps. Build for task cohesion before you need it.
🎧 Want More from Jon & Nick?
- Nerd Journey Podcast: nerd-journey.com
- Part 1 — Task Cohesion & Managing a Larger Team: Listen here
- Part 2 — Champion Your People: Listen here
- Jon White on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jonwhite173
- Nick Korte on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nickkorte
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, and believe it or not, I am still a chartered occupational psychologist.
Al ElliottUntil they strike you off. My name is Al, I'm a business owner until I go bankrupt. Again. Again.
Leanne ElliottIf you, if you've listened, you already know. But anyway, we're here to help you simplify the science of work Kind of. Um, this August we've been practicing what we preach and actually taking some time off to recharge.
Al ElliottYeah, but we're not leaving you hanging. Obviously every Tuesday we're still sharing something a little bit more relaxed, usually recorded on the terrace with a glass of wine. Not today though, because it's raining today.
Leanne ElliottIt's raining.
Al ElliottHow rude. First, I know, to be fair, first rainy day since June. Since June. So yeah, I know our friends in the UK, particularly in Manchester. Well, yeah, I'm sorry about that.
Leanne ElliottYeah, but we're still bringing you something a little lighthearted, albeit on this, this rainy— what do they call it? Rainy day play day?
Al ElliottYeah, well, they used to call it at school wet play, but that's, that's something we don't— it's not a word, not a term we really want to be using in these times.
Leanne ElliottOh no, you say it out loud. Yeah, problematic. But if you do want something a bit more serious—
Al ElliottNot too serious.
Leanne ElliottNot too serious, but check out Thursdays. And this Thursday you'll actually hear from a guest who's all about bringing joy back into the workplace. This week, that's Joel Zeff. Uh, he's an improv comedian, comedian and author who's also worked with Microsoft, McDonald's, American Express, and Wells Fargo.
Al ElliottVery fancy. And also just a really genuinely nice guy. Very, very happy. But today it is Tuesday, so we've got part 1 of our chat with the brilliant guys at Nerd Journey. That's Jon White and Nick Courting. Now their podcast helps tech professionals grow their careers, and they've got nearly 350 episodes of insights in Everything from management careers and overcoming obstacles to just how to be a professional nerd.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's an awesome podcast that we've had the real privilege of being on in the past and more recently, and that's the episode we're going to be sharing with you today. So, after this very short break, you'll hear part 1 of our conversation with Nick and John on the Nerd Journey podcast. Don't go anywhere.
Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Welcome to the Nerd Journey Podcast. Our goal is to help you, the technology professional, accelerate your career progression, increase your job satisfaction, and be more effective in your existing role.
Leanne ElliottWe want to bring listeners like you the career advice we wish we'd been given earlier in our careers.
Al ElliottI'm John White, and @vjourneyman on Twitter, sharing co-host duties with Nick Korte, @networknerd_.
Leanne ElliottWe're 2 former IT operations guys who have moved on to pre-sales roles with technology vendors. We have our opinions, but we also like to highlight the journeys of others and see what we can learn from them.
Al ElliottWe'd also like to ask for your feedback to make this a conversation, not a one-way broadcast. Email us at nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com. Or DM us @NerdJourney on Twitter. So come join us on our nerd journey.
Leanne ElliottLet's take a trip. Episode 340. What happens when you're expected to lead a large team as a people manager? How exactly are you going to succeed in doing that? According to business psychologist Leanne Elliott, one way to produce team cohesion might just be to focus on task cohesion. Leanne and her husband, Al, a business owner, are the co-hosts of the Truth, Lies and Work podcast. Both Leanne and Al have been former guests on our show, but we've never had them on together until today. Here's what you can expect to learn from part 1 of our discussion this week with Leanne and Al. We'll talk about the uncertainties in the world and how those have impacted business owners, entrepreneurs, and especially People managers. You'll hear about the industry trend of layoffs, how and why this might be leading to flatter organizations and larger teams for people managers to lead. But despite all these challenges, despite the environmental situation, we talk through some practical ways that people managers can still succeed, address the problems, deliver the results, and manage to support positive change and positive relationships with the members of their team. Let's get you to part Part 1 of our discussion with Al and Leanne Elliott.
Al ElliottAl and Leanne Elliott, welcome back to The Nerd Journey.
Leanne ElliottThank you so much for having us. It's such a joy to be back.
Al ElliottIt really is.
Leanne ElliottWe've—
Al Elliottso weird, but being together, but yeah, we both individually loved Our experience on Nerd Journey. That's right. We had you on individually because I think scheduling-wise, it just didn't quite work out to have you together. I do want to say that each of those interviews went amazingly well. And I think that we got just tons and tons of positive feedback on, on each one of them. We're really happy to have you back jointly this time. Well, thank you so much for inviting us. We really, we love our conversations with you.
Leanne ElliottYeah, they're awesome.
Al ElliottWe wanted a discussion, I guess, centered in job uncertainty and maybe economic uncertain times. It's, it's just a theme that we're revisiting in this cyclical world, right? Um, a few years back it was all about boom times and, you know, should you leave your job after 1 year for a better job? And, you know, advising people on that. And, and right now it's advising people in times of uncertainty.
Leanne ElliottSo.
Al ElliottWe definitely wanted to have you on because, you know, we knew that you have, you know, fairly unique takes on that. And we also want to shine the light on the elephant from, from different parts of the room to get the entire picture, you know, so to speak. You know, we're fairly US-centric, so we don't, we don't necessarily see like the worldwide view of economic uncertainty and job uncertainties. Can you give us a little bit of a different perspective, do you think?
Leanne ElliottIn the UK, especially there, uncertainty is the perfect word for it, John. There is a lot of uncertainty. And with that, a lot of businesses are, some are making layoffs, but I think generally speaking, in comparison to the US, there's more of a pause. And that pause means a lack of growth, a lack of investment. Sales are slowing down, revenue's slowing down. People are fearful because they can see that in the business. And a phrase that I've been hearing a lot recently from UK business owners And I don't know if this is maybe a lag from the pandemic or with the general uncertainty we're seeing in the world in terms of geopolitics and climate change and everything else. Now business owners aren't, in the UK, aren't pursuing growth, they're pursuing a lifestyle business. So a business that is big enough to provide the lifestyle that they want and provide the purpose and meaning in their work that they want, but rapid hypergrowth is no longer the number one priority. Yeah.
Al ElliottAnd I mean, I don't know whether it's the similar stats in the US, but in the UK, I think it's something like 96% of the people are employed by small businesses. And when they say small businesses, 250 people or below. So they're responsible. Small businesses are responsible for the majority of people, the vast majority of people getting employed. And my personal political views aside, I think almost universally it's accepted that this government in the UK, the Labour government, which I think is your equivalent of your Democrats, they're not really doing the things that they need to do to stabilize business and stabilize sort of commerce in the UK. And it's meaning that a lot of people, like Leanne said, there are big businesses who are frightened, as in like, I might lose my job and a new CEO come in. But the smaller businesses with, say, 50, 60 employees are frightened going, if I don't get this right, I'm going to lose everything and everyone's going to lose their jobs. So I think you're right. Uncertainty is, unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be here to stay for a little bit.
Leanne ElliottDoes the focus on lifestyle that you spoke to, Leanne, from the top of those small businesses, do you think they're also being extremely mindful about their employees' lifestyle too? Or is it more centric toward the top? From the business owners I've spoke to and heard of through colleagues, They are mindful of their employees, mindful in that let's not pursue growth necessarily during a time of uncertainty and take that risk that, as Al said, could derail the entire business. Rather, let's just sit with what we've got, focus on quality, focus on efficiencies and automations rather than necessarily pursuing growth at this time. I think the other main issue for UK businesses, as Al said, with the Labour government coming in, we've seen a lot of new and employment laws coming in that on paper sound great, but in execution actually bring a lot of risk for businesses. So, for example, rights to flexible working on day 1, the National Living Wage, basically more rights for employees, which is great. But what that means is when an organisation doesn't feel equipped to embed those new laws very effectively, or aren't sure how and aren't given the guidance from the government in terms of how to do that.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThey hesitate, so they won't make any new hires under these new rules, or they'll change how they're employing people in, in certain ways, maybe engage more contractors than full-time employees. So I think, yes, they're mindful. I'm not sure they're putting them maybe front and center of every business decision they're making. I honestly think that is, is being driven at the moment by a lot of uncertainty, a lot of ambiguity, and if I'm being honest, a bit of fear. And does that fear crush the entrepreneurial spirit, Al? For those people who really love being entrepreneurs and starting up new businesses, for example, or maybe they already have a business and they're the top person at that small business and they founded it. Kind of back to your story in episodes 235 and 236. I'd love to get your take on that.
Al ElliottI think true entrepreneurs, they live for challenges. And when things are going well, that's when they normally mess it up. So they'll get year 5, year 6, year 7. They've had plateaued in revenue, but still doing very well, and they will just crash the business if they're left to their own devices. So I think entrepreneurs react well to challenges in the first sort of 3 to 4 years of their business. So this is just another challenge. Where I think the problem might lie is back in the UK, there was something called IR35, which was Income Revenue 35, was a statute which allowed you to employ contractors to do basically your job rather, or do jobs rather than employing them permanently. Because when you employed them permanently, you had to make sure you give pension stuff, you had to pay sort of national insurance. I know these are UK-centric terms, but I'm sure it's very, very similar across the, in the US. Um, and so a lot of people would just go into this IR35. So they'd go, I'll have a contractor because it's so much simpler. I can just end their contract. And then I think a lot of people over the last 10 years have moved into like, oh no, no, it's safe. We were gonna have, we will have Proper employees who are properly employed because, you know, it's a bit more flexible and it's, it's proper way of doing it. And I fear we're going to go back to that way because as Leanne says, and Leanne can talk much, much more to the, um, to the actual legislation than I can, but it just feels as an entrepreneur like it's a risk to employ another person because, oh my goodness, I've got to think about all these other things that the Labour government brought in. And also, are the Labour government going to say that I can't, I can't fire anyone? Are they going to say that if I fire someone, I have to give them 6 months like in Lithuania? In a lot of Europe, if you fire someone, Spain, if you fire someone, you have to give them 6 months salary. That's just a huge risk in terms of employing people, and that could genuinely bring a young business down. So I think, I would like to think that entrepreneurs are sort of glass half full. They're like, okay, this is another challenge. We'll work our way around it. But I can see having a big impact on the decision of whether, how quickly to scale with, with employing people. What are your thoughts?
Leanne ElliottYeah, I agree. And I think it's, it's remembering that, I mean, globally and in the UK as well, it has been relentless for business owners since 2016. You know, we had the referendum, then we had the pandemic. We've gone through 5 prime ministers in as many years. We've just had a recent complete government change. There's been so much disruption and so much change that I honestly think entrepreneurs, business leaders are exhausted. They're burning out. And with that, like you say, an entrepreneur wants to keep fighting. They want to keep going, but it's how they invest that energy. Another thing that we've seen from business owners in the UK is choosing this lifestyle business. And with the extra time they're freeing up through this improved quality of process and automation. is actually spending more time on, on side hustles, on passion projects. So actually looking at what they've enjoyed most about building their business and setting up another stream of their business that focuses purely on that, whether that be talent management, acquisition, training and development. But yeah, certain aspects that they gain energy from. So during this period where the business may be fairly stable, they're finding other ways to fill that entrepreneurial need and that that meaningful work that they're currently lacking in a business that isn't in a growth stage, which is hard for an entrepreneur. So I think we're seeing people diversify a little bit what they're doing with their business, but much more on an individual level than an organizational one.
Al ElliottIs it similar in the UK to the US where a lot of these laws apply basically at the verge where you're transitioning from small to medium-sized business? Or maybe from very small business to small business. So, we have some things where it's like, oh yeah, here's this amount of protection that you get, but that's for businesses above 25 people. Or is it, does it kind of apply across the board?
Leanne ElliottI'm not an expert in employment law, but my understanding is it doesn't matter how small or large your organization is. Your first employee, these employment laws apply. And that's why for small businesses, it's such a a drastic shift and such higher risk, um, that as Al said, businesses are just choosing not, not to really focus on growth until they figured out exactly how this all, all applies and how it's going to work out.
Al ElliottI think that maybe there's this danger of basically growing your organization to a certain size, and then there's like a chilling effect, potentially, at least in the US, to grow beyond a certain size. Which kind of feeds into this idea of like, well, maybe I'll start a new business with this, these things that I've learned, and I'll just have maybe 5 very small businesses, each kind of having this like diversified source of income, um, rather than take on the additional risk of, of growing beyond a certain size. I can understand, you know, different laws in different locales. And, you know, I'm sure in the States it's like, you know, this state has this law and this state has this other law. So I'm sure it's very, very, you know, you get these like microclimates, right? Of innovation and business friendliness versus employee like protection. Maybe this leads to venue shopping, right? Like I'm going to start a business in this area, but not this area. I'll hire people from here and have them travel in or something like that. This is not going to fly with my wife and co-host, but there's something around the countries which allow businesses to employ and fire fairly easily in a, in a, you know, in a short period of time because You can then just sort of like build something without worrying that you've got to pay someone 6 months' worth of salary if you do fire them. Whereas there are some places where, I don't know what it's like in the US, but where you can just go, right, let's try them out. Let's try them out for 6 weeks. And if they're no good, fine, on your bike. And that does allow an entrepreneur to go, okay, I feel a bit freer and a bit safer about recruiting people. But as I say, that's not going to fly with the culture experts because that's probably not the way you do it.
Leanne ElliottI think it's a balance. And I think my understanding is in terms of UK law, there is a window, whether it be 3 months or 6 months, or you could have probation periods where the full kind of rights of employees weren't fully applied until you passed that said probation period. That is what has now been scrapped. So you have the same rights as an employee who's been there 6 years on the first day that you've been at work. So the fact is that I could turn up to work and go off on my first day, go off sick for 6 months and, and still get, you know, the pay that the company promises to pay and the statutory sick pay and things like that. There's a trust issue. We actually had somebody on, on the show, a wonderful up-and-coming psychologist, and she was pointing out that there's a trust crisis at the minute because we've had so much push and pull and power swings over the last few years. Sometimes the employees have the power and they can move on, as you were saying, you know, after a year in the job for a higher salary. And then we saw all the layoffs and then there's that fear from employees. So people, people stay longer. And I think with the changes in laws, geopolitics, there's so much conflict in every sense of the word, society and in our workplaces. People are just lacking trust, trust in their businesses, lacking trust in their leaders, lacking trust in their colleagues. We're seeing massive increases in what we call workplace incivility at the minute, which isn't bullying or harassment. It's a level down from that, but equally problematic where it's infighting, it's gossiping, it's withholding information from a colleague. That's on the rise because there's this issue with trust. So I think having these laws come in are great on paper, but as always with, seems to be the UK government, what's great on paper and it comes from the right place, the execution is never thought through. It's never thought through, well, how does actually this same law apply, as you were saying, John, to a business that has 10 employees, are expected to meet and work to the same expectations and laws and legalities as a business with 10,000 employees?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThe impact of going through a tribunal is very different for an organization of 10,000 with the internal resources to manage that than a small business with only 10 people. So, these blanket laws aren't necessarily helping businesses. I don't think they're always helping employees in the way that they're intended to. Yeah, the idea's in the right place, the execution they haven't quite got right. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's us by the way, and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals. Seamless.
Al ElliottSeamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about How to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottWorkplace incivility at scale and the trust crisis at scale, to me, translates to, oh, I'm seeing all these layoffs from large companies and flattening of management layers and things like that. I think this naturally leads us into that topic. Why do you think so many of these organizations, at least the ones we hear about in articles and on LinkedIn and from people we know, are choosing to flatten out some of the management layers and increase those manager-to-individual contributor ratios? Because that's part of the byproduct of some of these layoffs, seems like. I think there's a few reasons. All of these things are cyclical. I think it's going back in vogue again to have less hierarchy. There's a belief that that kind of more, I guess, more startup structure is better for innovation and collaboration, which is lacking in our workplaces right now. I'm not, I don't think it's because of the structure of the organization, but it's lacking. Another big one is that it's been very publicized over the last 18 months or so, the issue we have with not training our managers sufficiently. It's been like 82% of managers accidentally, and they didn't necessarily envisage managing people as part of their role, but that was just the next step up, so they took it. I read a stat yesterday. I think it's like only 44% of managers have ever had any form of training.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottSo, more than half of our managers aren't equipped with the skills they need to lead our people. And they're the people, the managers, that have the single biggest impact on employee performance, motivation, engagement, outcomes, productivity. So, for an organization who is hearing these things and looking at their business of where to make cuts, there's an element of, well, if our managers are inefficient, we could train them, or we could just let them go because they have the highest salaries too. So, actually, from a bottom line perspective, that Makes sense. I can't imagine that it's a thought-through, seriously considered approach because for me, if you have great managers, they're the people that drive the success of your business. I think when we talked last time, we called, you know, managers were culture keepers, a lovely phrase that you came up with, Nick. And they really are. I think it's naive to think that removing a manager is going to solve all these problems. It's not because people still want and need people to to look to in an organization when there is a, there's a distance and a sense of removal from senior leadership. But I think there may be the reasons why. They're the higher paid. There's a, it seems that it's in vogue right now to flatten out our organizations to be more agile, which seems to be back in, in fashion as well. And an element that it's been very publicized, managers have the single biggest impact. If we're not willing to invest in great managers, let's just remove them.
Al ElliottBut you've got to remember though, that if you're looking at a, like a P&L or You know, a financial statement, then if you were to attribute the revenue, then it's very difficult to attribute revenue directly to a manager, but it's easy to attribute it to an IC or someone on the production line or whatever, or sales or something like that. So the temptation for a brutal CFO to sit there and go, well, let's just cut the meat, trim the fat, I think is the term, isn't it? Because it's difficult when you're looking at a spreadsheet to see the impact of what a manager does. And particularly if you are, if that's what you live in, if you live in spreadsheets and you're making the decisions based on numbers, it's a no-brainer. Get rid of these people. What I think exactly what Leanne's saying, what they don't understand is that the IC produces $10,000, $100,000 a week in terms of revenue because they've got an amazing manager. The CFO doesn't always see that. And I'm not, I'm not sort of necessarily picking on CFOs here, but anyone who's making decisions on spreadsheets, it's, it's, it's natural to come to that conclusion, I think.
Leanne ElliottAnd oh, by the way, if you're one of those managers who hasn't been trained and you stay, you get more people too, on top of perhaps the inexperience and lack of training. We're going to ask you to maybe double the number of employees that you're managing.
Al ElliottYeah, I've been hearing ratios of managers managing 15, even teams of 20 people. And I tried to do 30-minute one-on-ones with every single employee on my team. And then if you are, you know, count the additional, like, you know, upstream meetings that you have and lateral meetings that you have with 20 people, there's just no way that you have that level of attention, right?
Leanne ElliottNo, because I'm sure also that these managers aren't given more time to manage with a bigger team. They still have to do everything else they need to do in terms of their administration or their job in general. They just now have more people to manage. So, we're not freeing up more time. What's problematic about that, and it comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of relationships within the workplace and teams in the workplace. Is it Daniel Priestley that said like the magic number is 12?
Al ElliottYes, your 13th hire.
Leanne Elliott13th hire as a small business. If you're a small business, your 13th hire is when you're going to start to see people problems potentially. Because it's at that point as a group of size, people start to break off into smaller teams or cliques will start to form. It becomes a number that is just too difficult to manage, as you said, John, in a very cohesive, time-efficient way. So, for an organization who's now expecting middle managers, senior managers to manage teams that are 15 to 20, it's hugely problematic, particularly if they're not trained. We're setting up our managers yet again for failure. Seems like it's a much larger, more impactful failure if you didn't do well, or you were shown the door after being put in that situation. But you still wanted to be a manager someday, it seems like it'd be much more difficult to get back to that somewhere. Yeah. We're very good at internalizing our failures and not very good at internalizing our achievements and our successes. That's why, you know, we get, we hear up to 80% of people will report feelings of imposter syndrome. That's what imposter syndrome stems from, an inability to internalize our achievements. So, for a manager, particularly a manager who wants to be a great manager, You know, the intention is there to have gone through that experience and that potential failure is going to be, it's what we'd call workplace trauma that we've talked about as well before, trauma with a lowercase t. And that is devastating to somebody's career, their self-efficacy, their belief that they can do their job well. It's detrimental. It's psychological harm we are causing potentially to these managers by not giving them the tools and the resource and the support that that they need. It's highly irresponsible from organizations to take this approach. Even in that type of environment where it's challenging, is there a way that the managers who are in those seats, who really care about doing a good job, who are willing to dig in and do it, can be effective? Absolutely. I think my first advice would be we want to focus on the relationships, right? Because that's where all the good stuff comes from. I mean, you've got great relationships with our, our people. When you're dealing with a team of this size, 15 to 20 people, that's really hard to manage effectively, particularly if you're a new manager or an experienced manager. My advice to any manager in that situation is to focus on task cohesion, which is much more transactional and much easier to get right. So, what's the workflow? Who's doing what? Who does what in what order? How does that contribute to the overall outcomes we're trying to deliver? And how does Al's role feed into my role?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWhat do I do to make Al's job easier? If we can build in the systems and the processes that mean that task cohesion is really strong, then that means that over time, we're going to build team cohesion as a byproduct of that. Because you'll know anecdotally, if you work with a colleague that you don't know particularly well, but oh my gosh, they make your job so much easier. You love them. You want to have a conversation with them over coffee. You want to get to know them a bit more.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYou want to learn more about what they do and who they are and where they're from. Because it breeds what the opposite of incivility is, not surprisingly, is workplace civility. It's that respect, it's that mutual appreciation. That can be much more easily achieved by striving for task cohesion. And then once you've got that right, then you can start to nurture the team cohesion that people need. And I guess from a relationship perspective, in terms of helping your team Operate in an environment that feels functional. It's really understanding everything we talked about before when we've had the previous conversation in terms of this team chart. What does great look like to us? What behaviors are acceptable? Which aren't? But more so than that, it's taking the time to check in. It doesn't need to be a formal 30-minute one-to-one. It could be a 5-minute phone call on a Tuesday afternoon saying, how you doing? Anything making your job harder today? What can I do to make your job easier as a manager? What's really bugging you? Because if you just have those little check-ins, which seem much less time intensive, you'll start to see the themes coming across and the issues that are bugging people across the team. And that can be a really effective way of kind of troubleshooting and putting out those little fires in a much more time effective way than if you need to sit and do these more formal, formal one-to-ones and reviews. Of course, that might be an obligation you have within the organization, but if you don't, I'd focus more on just that genuine checking in, genuine care. Of actually, what can I do to make your job easier to do?
Al ElliottAnd there's the Pareto, isn't there, of the 80/20, where 80% of your problems only come from 20% of your team. And then you go one step further into the 80/20 of the 80/20, and then like, I think it's like 64% of your problems come from 4% of your team or something like that. Please correct me if this is, if you disagree with this, but I think a lot of managers go, I've got 20 people, I need to go and spend an hour with every single one of those 20 people this week. And that's 20 hours, and then I've got another 10 hours of meetings. What am I going to get my work done? Well, in actual fact, if you were to sort of prioritize and go, well, actually, really, the problem, the fires are here. So that's why you spend an hour. But I like the answer. It's just a 5-minute quick email or a Slack or something of just going, how are you getting on with that thing? Or, you know, I heard that X happened. Are you okay? That sort of stuff. I don't know. It feels like that's a bit more manageable to me for managing 20 people than just going, I'm going to have to do an hour for each one of them a week. What are your thoughts?
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely. The only thing I'd say is, is make it a phone call. And I know that can be, can be a bit difficult, especially for us millennials and Gen Zs. We're much more used to messaging and Slack and that type of thing, but it provides another task that I'm, I now have to add to my list. My manager sent me a message, I'm gonna have to reply, and I'm fine actually, but it's that distraction that I'm gonna have to, have to go back to. Or actually, there's a massive problem I don't know how to approach, and I'm gonna overthink about it for the next 3 hours and And that's going to distract me from what I'm doing. Pick up the phone. I know it might not always feel the most comfortable thing to do, but honestly, once you get into the habit of it, and once your employees get into the habit of that, that more vocal check-ins, it's much more time efficient and less emotional load, potentially.
Al ElliottYou touched upon a couple of things there. One is the thing that you just mentioned, which is, you know, make those connections actually count. And just because you're going through the motions of a connection task doesn't mean that you're, you're making quality connections. So strive for the quality connections over checking off the tasks. And then the first one, earlier point was the myth of the peanut butter spreading of your, uh, your time, right? Across everybody. Like, oh, I'm going to give everybody an equal amount of time because that's fair, but it's probably not fair in the application, right? Like there's people who need way more time and people who need way less time. So to give everybody equal time doesn't serve everybody.
Leanne ElliottYeah. And a really good clue as well is if you have a member of your team that you really don't want to have that conversation with because they, they feel a bit, they're a bit more challenging. They feel a bit more challenging. That is an absolute sign that there's a difficult conversation that needs to be had that you should have had already. So I think if you're looking at who needs time and attention today, Think about the people that really don't want to, want to pick up the phone too, because there's probably something there that, that, yeah, needs to, there needs to be a conversation. I think that if you have worked somewhere that has had a trend of layoffs, as we see, and you kind of get this unannounced call from your boss, you get that principal's office feeling, you know, and it, it's just an instant, it just happens. It's not that you want to think the worst thing, but it's something unexpected. You might have some trauma that's still there, a little PTSD or whatever we want to call it. But when the manager says, hey, this is a good news call, or I just need to check in on this one thing and they get right to it, I think that helps.
Al ElliottIf you get PTSD or anxiety when a manager books a call in with you, then your manager's not talking to you enough, are they? Because if that's what's triggering, then you're like, I haven't spoken to this person for 6 months. Last time it was a bit of a warning. That's not a great manager, is it? Because a great manager is someone who, who does call you every week, um, and says, how's it going? I heard that this happened. Did it work out all right?
Leanne ElliottYeah, 100%. You know what, I'm reflecting now. I was made redundant back in 2015. Still one of the hardest things to go through. Um, and I had a great relationship with my manager. We'd speak Probably, if not every day, every other day, whether it just be for, honestly, sometimes just for a quick chat, sometimes for a check-in, sometimes they need a quick answer. I answered the phone, I was just like, hi, John, everything all right? He went, not really, we need to have a conversation. I was like, oh. And that for me was the complete opposite. I was used to having those really positive conversations with my manager. So that, yeah, I don't know, just reflecting on my own experience, I think Al's absolutely right that you want that relationship where that's the last thing on your mind. Yeah. That could be what's about to happen. Of course, in the current climate, it is on everybody's mind. But I think that reassurance that it's, yeah, the relationship is, is the, the primary reason always for that phone call. I saw on LinkedIn, I'm not sure it was this week or last week, a really lovely post from a manager who worked in a tech organization, had stayed in the organization, had seen layoffs, and very honestly said how devastating it was, how sad it was. This was the support he's going to provide for the people who were leaving the organization. That he was reaching out to various contacts and putting together various lists of roles available to the people that stayed. Um, we do have this survivor's guilt. This is what I'm feeling. It's what my survivor's guilt currently looks like. Um, let's look after each other during this time. And for me, that was such a wonderful way to kind of go, kind of ground everyone and go, this is really hard. This is what I'm feeling. This is what I'm going to try and do to help. What else do we need? What else can we do?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think it's managers like that that you're never gonna be afraid to get a phone call from, because even if it is the worst, they've done everything they can to protect you in, in the lead up to that moment.
Al ElliottAnd also just a real quick one with that, and, and I dunno whether it's something you wanna go into, but with that phone call, you didn't go, yeah, good, good. You know, do you have some time on Friday? I want, you know, we just wanna do a little bit of a chat. I might bring HR in. It was a, no, there's bad news. This is the bad news. And because the relationship was there, I'm guessing. Then the bad news was devastating, but at the same time you're like, well, I know you've done— I mean, I don't know. I wasn't there.
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly. It was devastating, but it was, he will now help me figure out how I move on from this in the immediate future where I have to lay off my entire team before I'm also laid off myself and what work potentially looks like in the near future. So, I think 2 sides to the coin based on everything we talked about. Absolutely. Yes. You want to have a great relationship with your manager so that you don't immediately think those things. But I think that each person has their own level of trauma and PTSD that they're suffering from based on the environment, regardless of whether you have a great manager or not, that they probably have to fight. Those are the two kind of sides of the scale, I think.
Al ElliottObviously, if you have both, well, then you're really going to have the I think this might be one of those cultural shifts because 30 years ago, telephone is exactly how people communicated. So getting a phone call was not like really a traumatic thing. Whereas today, you know, even if my family members phone me instead of text me, I get the spike in adrenaline and cortisol, like, oh no, what's happened? So Maybe for a manager who's trying to establish that rhythm, maybe there could be some kind of intermediate step where they text or message ahead of time, you know, even if it's just a few minutes saying, hey, um, notice you had this spot in your schedule open. Do you have time for an informal chat? I'm just trying to meet up and, uh, check in on how things are going. So it's just that preparation and then paving the way. And then once that's the established rhythm of, oh yes, this manager checks in with me for 5 minutes by phone, then doing it out of the blue becomes less of a trauma, you know, potential like triggering event.
Leanne ElliottDefinitely, definitely. And I think absolute clarity is key. So even saying, just wanna, wondering if you've got half an hour for a quick informal, still is a bit of ambiguity there. I think if it's as simple as going, everything's good, nothing's wrong. Just going to give you a call at this time to check in. Or what I did hear another manager do during the early stages of COVID which I thought was really, really positive and proactive, would basically say, I'm going to, I'm going to call you at 2 o'clock every Tuesday, just to check in. No agenda, nothing, you know, on the cards, just to, just to see how you're doing and to check in. Another really nice organic way of doing it is when you have team meetings anyway, over Zoom, is allow the first 5, 10 minutes, just be like, hey, how's it going? How's your sister? How did they get on with this? Or how's that project going? And oh, that client's been a right pain, haven't they? And just having an actual conversation, allowing that time, that 5 to 10 minutes at the beginning of a meeting, it just establishes that this is part of our team culture. This is part of our way of working, our way of operating, having these more informal conversations. So then, as you say, John, during that transition period, um, it feels more comfortable, a lot less scary, and will just, yeah, very quickly become More natural.
Al ElliottAnd then why, why shouldn't you be the manager who just does things differently? Why shouldn't you just be the person who goes, well, you go and work on Derek's team over there. You know, he's going to call you just so you know, guys, he's going to call you just out of the blue. Don't worry. It's just him checking in on you. Why shouldn't you be that manager? Because let's be honest, you're going to be, there's going to be stories about you in the organization. You're going to be known as the phone call manager, as the boomer manager, perhaps as your nickname, because you pick up the phone and you talk to someone.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYou know, I think you're right. As long as you're aware that you are potentially triggering someone if they have been through that, I'm sorry, bad news phone call. But at the same time, it, like Leanne said, it only takes 2 or 3 phone calls and it all to be good news. And you're going, okay, right, nothing's wrong. Just wanna check in on you.
Leanne ElliottYeah. And, and it can't be performative. It has to be with some intention. It's not enough to just ring somebody and go, everything all right? Because we go, yeah, fine. Well, at least, at least Brits do. Yeah, fine.
Al ElliottYeah, fine.
Leanne ElliottYou need a bit, a bit more of an intentional question, a bit more of even a coaching question. So I, like, I noticed this email come in from Bob and it seemed, it seemed a little bit direct. Is, what's going on? Is everything all right? You okay? How did you take that? It's almost digging in a little bit more and finding a specific thing to talk about, which every good manager does anyway, in terms of giving any type of feedback. It'll be very specific and rooted in context. It's the same for these casual phone calls. If you've got something rooted in context, it's going to help that conversation flow. It's going to start to breed.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThat word of the moment psychological safety that people will actually feel that they're able to authentically open up. So it can't just be, yeah, I'm going to call you every Tuesday for 10 seconds and make sure you're still alive. It needs to be, I'm going to phone you, we're going to have a conversation because I'm genuinely interested in how you're doing, what's going on in your work world, and if appropriate beyond that. Here's what I just heard in my head when, when you and Al were talking, Leanne. What I heard you both kind of say was managers should be really good at interviewing people, not just in job interviews, but just in general to start and continue good conversations. That's a really nice way to frame it. Yeah. Maybe that's a skill that the potential manager could highlight that they've gotten good at. You know what I mean? Like, if you are someone who has become quite skilled in this area, Maybe that's something that you talk up during your interview if you want to be a people manager.
Al ElliottYeah, potentially. But also, there are a lot of managers out there, and I don't know if it's the same in the US, but in the UK, you get on a train, used to do it about 20 years ago, you get on a train, and there'd always be someone sitting at a train table. They'd open their laptop, they'd get their mouse out, they'd get their phone out, and they'd go, yeah, no, I can't really talk. I'm on the train. And they've made the phone call. And the point of that was just them going, look how important I am. Now, they weren't a manager because they wanted to lead people. They weren't a manager because they cared about people. They weren't a manager because they wanted to interview people. They're a manager because they wanted to tell everyone they got a promotion at work and they were important. And I think that, as Leanne pointed out, there's a lot of people who've fallen into that. Um, and what is it? What was the stat? 44% of people never got training, was it?
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah.
Al ElliottUm, and so they just think that's what being a manager is because what they've seen, the, the loudmouths who have been managers before and they're really important people who run around with papers in their hand. And they don't know that actually being a manager is almost the opposite, is being quiet, not loud.
Leanne ElliottYeah, that's a lovely turn of phrase about being quiet, not loud. I think interviewing questions or interviewing skills, yes, and I understand the perfect, um, kind of crossover skill you've, you've got there, Nick, where I just nudge it slightly, is it's less interviewing and more coaching questions. Ah, okay. So I think it's things like being genuinely inquisitive or asking questions that help somebody leads somebody to the next point of their thought process or the next thing that's troubling them. For anyone out there who wants to be a manager, is a manager, and hasn't been trained on this already, look at skills that are very embedded in coaching, things like listening skills. Do a listening skills course. That's going to help you loads. I mean, if you can, if you've got the resources, go on a coaching course. It will be such a transformative experience for you in terms of your emotional intelligence, your self-awareness. How to engage with other people, how to interact with other people without agenda, without judgment. That's what I'd say is to highlight those skills, your curiosity, your ability to coach, your ability to listen. I would snap up anyone, even if they had no experience at all. I would snap up anyone with those skills into a management role. I'm afraid we'll have to cut it right there this time. If you're one of those managers out there who isn't getting trained, You can find that training elsewhere, whether it's going to a seminar, reading a book, listening to some podcasts, or as Leanne suggested, taking some coaching courses to make you more effective at asking questions, communicating with your team, building those relationships, and driving the results you need to as a people leader. I liked Al's encouragement to all of us that it's okay for a manager to do things a little bit differently To have that quirkiness, that stylistic imprint in the way you lead your team that produces a positive impact, of course. If you're looking for more on those topics of uncertainty, I have a couple of links for you. First, check out our Layoff Resources page at nerd-journey.com/layoff-resources. On that page, you can find the most impactful conversations we've had on the topic of layoffs, with experts like Leanne Elliott, for example, and many technologists who've shared their stories of layoff and the steps they took to get that next role. Hopefully you can find something there that's an encouragement and a help to you. We also have our Career Uncertainty Action Guide, which has the 5 pillars of career resilience and some AI prompts that can help you work through overwhelm, financial planning, and navigating a layoff. Have you subscribed to the Truth, Lies and Work podcast yet? If you haven't, now's a good time to do that because part 2 of our discussion with Al and Leanne Elliott happens next week, where we'll flip the script and talk about what it's like to be an individual contributor on a large team. How can you stand out?
Al ElliottFarewell, listeners. Tune in next time as the journey continues. I'm John White at Be Journeyman. For Nick Corte @networknerd_ signing off. Adios.
Leanne ElliottThat was John Whyte and Nick Corte from Nerd Journey Podcast. For part 2 of this conversation, yes, there is more and more than 300 more episodes. Go and find Nerd Journey wherever you get your podcasts.
Al ElliottYeah, thank you so much, guys. Uh, they are such good interviewers, and I tell you what is really cool about them— they are both interviewing from remotely, and there's 2 interviews which we've done this once or twice before, and it's really, really difficult. And they just, they just know who's gonna say what. And I suppose after 340-odd episodes, you do, you do know that. But they are really professional, really nice guys. If you, if you are invited on their podcast, which I hope you are, then, um, yeah, it's gonna be a really nice time. It is, it is a long record. It was about an hour and a half, 2 hours, wasn't it?
Leanne ElliottIt was about 2 hours, yeah. And, and, but I enjoy that because it allows for conversation. They edit it down in such a brilliant way, um, that, yeah, just, just so much gold. And particularly in these times, layoffs, tech industry under pressure, navigating, navigating career changes and transitions is really tough. They've got so many episodes and guests and experts and resources. Do go and check out their podcast, also their website where they keep all the good stuff, um, like the resources and things like that. I'll leave links to both of those in the show notes. And thank you so much again to John and Nick. Um, we love you guys and loved coming on your show.
Al ElliottAnd love Nerd Journey. So join us Thursday where Joel Zeff shows us how to have more fun at work without losing productivity. I really pushed back on this with Joel because I'm like, no, I don't believe you. And he's like, shut up, Al. It's true. I've worked, I've worked with American Express. Who the hell have you worked with? And I was like, yeah, I'll just wind my neck in.
Leanne ElliottThere you go. If you want to hear that beef, tune in on Tuesday.
Al ElliottSee you guys. Bye.