05: The one about managing teams

Today we're banging on about various aspects of managing people and teams. We have a cathartic rant about personal experiences with different management styles, but also talk about the brilliance of effective onboarding, the impact of toxic work cultures, and the crucial role of empathy and transparent communication in team management. We also cover off managing remote teams, and the necessity of creating a positive and empowering work environment.

Number of fucks given in this episode: 18 (new PB)

If you have a horror management story you'd like to have a cathartic rant about, email it to hello@faroundandfindoutpodcast.com.au.

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Episode transcript

Emily: Welcome to the Fuck Around and Find Out podcast. We're your hosts Emily, Rah and Christine. We are three women who have built and run our own businesses and are here to shoot the shit on everything about women in business and running your own business.

Christine: Fuck yeah. Oh my god, yes. What an awesome intro there, Abs.

Very nice with your little radio voice going on, mate. I'm also

Emily: kind of glad I can speak English.

Christine: It'd help.

Emily: I just stumble on a word, guys. Look at you're a pro podcasting now, babe. Oh, that's right. I know. I just like hearing my own voice. I think that's the key

Christine: to it all. Give her a

Emily: microphone and a headset where my voice is louder in my ears than anyone else's.

It's That's

Rah: why we've started a podcast, obviously. That's right.

Emily: It's really my soapbox. Yep.

Rah: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. This is how

Emily: this is run. Yep. Welcome to our newest episode. That is just the three of us, quite literally shooting the shit. What are we talking about today, [00:01:00] kids? What are we talking about?

Rah: So we're going to be talking about, um, Managing people and,

Emily: oh that's a juicy one, and

Rah: teams.

Emily: I mean the favourite thing that we've all for millions of years. Yeah,

Rah: so,

Emily: I won't lie, this is one of my favourite topics.

Rah: Yeah. Get on my little soapbox. And when you guys first brought this up as a potential topic, I thought I'm not going to have much to say. I work for myself. You'd be surprised. But yes, so, but obviously 25, whatever many years being managed.

She's only 25. Yes, that's right. I'm only 25. Um, thanks to the Snapchat filters you showed me earlier. Um, But also in terms of like managing people happens in all sorts of ways in terms of being a team leader in my networking group for the innerwest chapter of women with altitude, but also contractors or people who I'm contracting work to, to help me get my work done, but [00:02:00] also with the people who I've, you know, contracted to help develop my business and my branding, I've just had an ebook designed, you know, those, you know, bits and pieces.

Yes. Um, you know, they're those relationships, you know, you're managing all of that as well.

Christine: Yeah, you do. And it's a huge psychological puzzle, um, because every single person obviously is different. Um, and how you manage, interact, speak to, communicate has a very different nuance depending on who that or what that organisation is or person is.

Yeah. And that can be tricky

Emily: and it's, I also find this a little bit, uh, the generational piece plays a part too, because I feel like, you know, even just as simple as I can say one thing, but I'm, I'd like to think I'm a bit more of a direct human being, but there are people that do not handle directness and [00:03:00] managers who can't be direct and try to, and then cover it up with like, Oh, how was your weekend?

Or, you know, try and bring that socialization back in. Or people that are like, you know, my boss at the moment is fabulous and she's very very good at like throwing in the comments that's not directly telling us something, but we all know what she's saying for us to do like she said something, um along the lines of I'm, just trying to find it.

She had it today as well. Um, and it was kind of like i'll be underground everyone In the middle of an urgent job. Right. So like, without saying, just leave me the fuck

Rah: alone. Yeah.

Emily: She's just kind of gone.

Rah: She's giving you the lay of the land. But I think

Emily: that's clever. It's a clever play on words to be like.

I'm not being that direct, but I'm just letting you know, like, just fuck

Rah: off. Sort your shit out without me. Try and manage your shit without me.

Christine: Obviously if there's blood and a limb has fallen off, and it's a very rare thing, let

Rah: me know. I imagine it's just like when the kids fall over in your backyard and you're like, don't tell [00:04:00] me if, unless there's blood, I don't need to know.

I'm happy for you guys to just run around. Well that's

Christine: right, and at the end of the day, it's not fun unless someone's lost an eye kind of thing. Yeah. In childhood. Exactly. So, to

Emily: be honest, the new generation of young kids, including my own, are a little less Chaotic outside because of the technology.

Rah: Yeah, that's true.

Yep.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Losing an eye, a bit of blood is a rarity

Christine: sometimes. And therefore it makes it a big tragedy when it occurs. Yeah.

Rah: Yes. Cause the thing that I was really interested in, in terms of managing a team from my perspective was when I came on board with you guys. Yep. And, you know, um, you did all like the onboarding process, you know, filled in paperwork and set up my accounts and whatnot.

Emily: Um. Thank God we sounded like we knew what we were doing.

Rah: Oh yeah, you totally do. Thank you. Um, but the. It probably comes down to the culture of the way you two operate, the whole vibe of the way we're all interacting on [00:05:00] Slack with, you know, with the whole team. To me, that's, it's a really, it's been a really nice experience, um, which was something I didn't think was really all that possible with a fully remote team.

Um, because this is the first, first job that I've had or working relationship I've had where it's entirely a team working remotely, everything else beforehand was COVID and then suddenly you're working, yeah, well, exactly, but what I'm curious about is how intentional has that been? Very intentional.

Christine: And we know there's room for improvement and we've got a little bit of a project going on at the moment to make it even better.

Um, but incredibly, yes, we do darling, get back on board. Absolutely. Chris, we'll refer

Rah: you to the director's notes from the last meeting,

Christine: that

Rah: you're fully attentive to. I'll just refer

Christine: to my remarkable for my doodles from that meeting. Hashtag

Rah: not.

Christine: [00:06:00] Um, but yes, it has to be intentional. Otherwise you're not going to keep a team.

Um, but it also goes

Emily: hand in hand because we also were, it's important for us to have team members who we had a good vibe with and got along really well with and connected with. Before we even had work for people, because that was more important for us was people we just knew would be the right fit because we've all been in a very toxic cultures before in ways, shapes or forms, and we didn't want to just pick someone for the sake of their skill set.

We wanted someone to be. Um, on the same wavelength, be very easy to get along. And so it did feel like a proper community that way as well. And so that kind of, whilst we will make the additional effort to make sure we're always messaging in there and trying to encourage conversation, the fact that we all get along really well just naturally creates that too.

Rah: Makes it really frictionless, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because

Emily: we've all been in, um, you know, really bad places before with toxic cultures and workplaces. Or toxic

Rah: [00:07:00] people. Like even, I've had jobs where I loved the job and still, and still love the, the company that I worked for. You know, had worked for, um, but there were just some people who were not the right fit and, and almost broke me.

No, that was my

Emily: last contract.

Rah: Yeah. Through and

Christine: through.

Rah: Yeah.

Christine: And sometimes, you know, you can be in that horrible culture and it can be in a, you know, it can be sorted out. I mean, I've been to HR for a handsy feely manager in my, um, lifetime. Um, but also, um, have had a, um, hotel owner, you know, my background is event management and um, the owner, can't do anything about the owner, toxic, narcissistic, rude, arrogant.

Disrespectful. You can't stay in that. There are no solutions in that instance. So the people I worked with were fabulous. Loved, loved, you know, that. But you've got to leave because you can't [00:08:00] put up with, um, that. disrespect and dishonouring coming down from above. It messes with you. Oh, it does. I mean, you know, I cried.

I don't cry in the workplace, um, very often, but I have had two incidents in my life of crying, and that was one of them. I had a similar thing with my

Emily: last contract. It was, You know, the same thing, the, the CEO was, was the problem and to the point where, but there was also another team member who was, um, next level, like full blown stalkery level, deep diving, stalking me through social media.

To the point where, like, somehow found other, other people's businesses that I was affiliated with loosely, but being, you know, part of their networking to find things, which was so creepily unnecessary and a massive breach of privacy. But my CEO was, was the one that was Bullying, bullying me, basically, [00:09:00] you know, I sat in a room and told him to his face that I felt physically unsafe and like I was about to vomit everywhere.

I was so on, like, I was so anxious and scared that I was so physically unwell and I just got a blank stare at me and just kind of kept going like, you know, I raised that concern several times and nothing happened and you know, nothing that, who was I supposed to go to? We didn't have an HR team cause we were too small and there was no one else above him aside from the board.

The board was made aware on multiple occasions that people were having issues with him and they chose to do nothing. Yeah. So, like, it, you know, I was the same thing. I chose to walk away even though I really loved him. surprisingly loved the, the industry that I was in. It's, you know, I do marketing, so everything's the same in that sense in some ways, but the actual industry and profession was, was surprisingly fascinating.

And I really enjoyed a lot of the other people I worked with and it was really hard to walk away, but I was so physically sick every day at the thought of walking downstairs to [00:10:00] my desk. He breached the safety of my own home because of how bad he was. Was treating me and making me feel and that is not okay.

Like my desk is my happy place It's where I create magic and it shouldn't I should never feel So you get the thought of sitting at my desk, yeah? Yeah. And that's just reinforced for me in a very big way, why I never want to, you know, get to, I want to get to the point where I never have to ever have anyone manage me.

Yeah. But me. Yeah. And I mean,

Christine: safety of your team. Such a big thing. Like physical safety, mental safety, the well beingness of a team, whether it's an employee or a contractor or a community. that gets you through your day is so important. And, um, you know, if you have an employee type situation, you've got a job that company owns you own, well not even own you, they've [00:11:00] contracted you for a set amount of hours per day, per week, whatever the arrangement is.

They are only entitled to that portion of you to fulfill your KPIs and whatever it is you do for them. But they don't have a right to interfere with the, everything outside and that's what that situation was and, and I think That is one of the, you know, the background things about having a team, but also taking care and doing a good onboarding, um, program.

Um, we've all got horror stories of, you know, our first day on the job. I remember, um, Amazing how often onboarding is not done properly. I remember like last century when I got my very first banquet manager role after I'd been studying. Very exciting I was and I walked into the office and the [00:12:00] back, the banquet manager was leaving because I mean she had been having an affair with the food and beverage manager.

They got caught doing the big nasty in the car park. He lost. The job, she was on the out because she was, you know, going, you know, supporting him by quitting such a dumb thing. But, um, and of course this is pre-computers because I am a woman of that age, um, 21. But that thank you very much. Um, and I remember her picking up, so everything's manual.

So I had a book a big, like imagine the old restaurant diaries. So you booking, so that was the booking doc diary or the events. Department and a typewriter. And I remember her asking me, have you ever been a banquet manager before? And I said, no, this is my first job. She picked up that heavy Bible of a book, dropped it from a couple of feet above the, the desk said, there's the diary.

Good luck. And that, that was my welcome.

Emily: I think there's [00:13:00] like a lot of, um, issues around onboarding, but I also feel like there's a lot Issues around people needing experience within, um, workplaces. And also, especially when you, you are progressing and you're, you're wanting to, um, like get a promotion, for example, like I know, um, there's people who have been in the job for a long time and want to move up, but get knocked back with little things like, Oh, we haven't got enough management experience.

It's like, well, how am I supposed to get management experience if you don't let me manage or let me be in a position to manage? It's called higher duties, darls.

Rah: Start dishing it out. Absolutely. Yep, that's right. Or

Emily: teach me how, put me in the role and guide me through it. Like I can't, you know, don't expect me to take on additional duties for the same pay rate that I'm on, on top of my full time job to get this experience that you require for me to then elevate into the workplace.

Like that just, that stuff pisses me off quite a bit. Um, and yeah, the, like, and to circle back, that was just in my brain, sorry to tangent, to circle back to the onboarding, [00:14:00] there, there's different things. I think that make a good onboarding and make a bad onboarding. What you just said before was crap because it's like good luck, you're in the deep end, see you later.

I mean, I have started contracts where the previous person who'd left had left and they weren't able to get someone like me into the role until much, much later. So it's been a Biden default and nature sink or swim situation. And that's really hard and you kind of muddle through. But then I've had Ones that are the opposite.

Like, I started a job years and years and years ago and I sat there alone for a week. Yeah. With a computer that could only really access the internet and just googled stuff because they had nothing ready for me at all. Yeah. And that was boring, beyond boring, beyond boring and all I wanted to do was, like, I would prefer to be thrown in the deep end, personally.

Um, and then I've had, I was just actually talking to my mum about this last night, I had um, One of my jobs, they, they was probably the best onboarding I've had, they were ready for me, I had a laptop, I had a, um, email [00:15:00] address, I had a desk back before everyone was hot desking, and they, they were very big on their merch, this company, so I had this beautiful little merch kit.

And it was a real, boom, here you go. Yep. Kind of thing. Yep. And even though onboarding remotely has become an interesting piece as well. I can only, yeah, well it did, it did, I've onboarded twice now remotely through contracts. Yeah. And that's also a fascinating thing because you don't have to go anywhere and meet anyone.

It's like, what do I, what do I do? And a lot of the time they do provide you with, technology. So in one instance, for me, it was mailed to me and I was mailed my laptop. Yep. So I had that that way and that was all set up and ready to go for me. And then in the other instance, I had to go into their like regional office, which just happened to be in the city for us, which was fine.

Um, and go and pick it up and grab everything there. And then. Log in and then it was just like having making sure meetings were set up with everyone. So you kind of got that FaceTime without it being, you know, for reals with everyone. [00:16:00] And then little things like making sure you're included in calendar invitations for like the team, the team meetings, because that often gets overlooked.

And then like just making sure you've got a list of this is what you need to do today. Yep. Yeah. And just have a little bit of handholding for like a day or two and then just like off your trot kind of thing.

Christine: Yeah. When I, um, working in my job before I, um, became me and became, um, a person, um, in business.

Um, I was working for a university and one of my jobs as the project officer of the team was onboarding and we had a big overhaul. Um, so I was in a university, we were academic and professional staff and when I started there we didn't have an awesome welcome kind of set up, but we did have a fabulous overhaul of the project led by one of the senior academics.

And it became a [00:17:00] really good tool. We interviewed newbies who had recently come on under the old onboarding program to find out what didn't work, what they would have liked. Um, and that way we put together. What I think was a brilliant onboarding program. You know, day one, we organized buddies for them for the first two weeks.

What happened day one? What your schedule was for the first week? Where you were going? You know, I had a list. You've got central meetings you're invited to, even balloons and a sign welcome, um, to the team in the office, whether we, IT were booked in on the first day to set up the laptop, all of that sort of stuff.

And it was an important, and it's an important piece. And I think, you know, it's pivotal, it's very central to the start. Like it's all part of that experience, um, how you start in anything, um, see the same company that I [00:18:00] sat there for a week

Emily: without anything to do. They did buddy me with someone and that was actually wonderful because when I could get onto the staff I was able to then like sit and follow along with her and whatever else and then, but she's, and like to the point where like she is actually still a good friend of mine to this day.

That's great. Like maybe, oh, eight years ago, nine years ago now. And we're still like decent friends because we just got on so well, but the buddy idea is a good, is a good one, but it's hard to do virtually. Well, yes. Remote. Yes. Which is becoming more of a common thing, I think.

Rah: Yeah. So then, how are you guys like, I don't want this to turn into an interview, but I'm curious.

I know this is your dream, um, um, but how, how How are you managing that? Managing a team? Yeah, but doing all of that remotely? Um,

Emily: I actually think it's been okay. Like, we, we talk about stuff a lot. [00:19:00] As well, and we have constant communication. I think the thing we do struggle with, and we've talked about it a lot lately as well, is, is like, because the, the nature of how we contract is based on, um, Off, like when they're not full, it's not full time, like we don't have full time staff.

Um, it's very hours driven, so it's very much like you've got, you know, whatever X amount of hours per week, month, you know, whatever. So whatever that is, I think the thing that's tricky for us, which is a mentality that comes from a corporate office of full time staff, is that when we need a bunch of stuff done and we've got someone doing it and they've got X amount of time allocated for us, it's that, it's the communication piece that becomes really, really important.

For Especially, I know, to me, and I know Chris is the same because we're on the same team. Oh yeah, I'm on a big communication. Communication is like, and transparency in communication, like, I so don't give a fuck if you're just like, I haven't fucking got time right now. I'm like, cool, I don't care. Like, if you just tell me, because then if it's something that I need to do urgently, I'll just do it.

[00:20:00] Like, it's fine. I so don't care. I'm not going to judge. I'm not going to be a bitch about it. Just tell me. Like, be honest with me about what's going on, um, so I can step in and fix it up for you too. Because I don't want to put the pressure on anyone else to do. These things, and these things, it's not the end of the world.

Like it's not going to change the world if this is not, you know, if you can't do it, if I have to pick it up, that's not going to kill everything. So I would rather just know. Through transparency, what your plan is, are you going to do all of your stuff in one hit or you're going to spread it out, whatever, whatever floats your boat, whatever fits with your schedule, that's super fine to me.

If you want to work until 3am in the morning, go nuts. I'm one of those people that I'll probably do that with you. You know, I don't really care, but I just need to know what, how you're doing it so I can work around that. Yeah. Because there's other stuff that needs to come, that I need to do that's either based on the tasks that I have given to help.

Or. I need to do things as a result of so it's what it's just, that's probably the thing that we're teething at the moment through is just getting that understanding, but it's, it's [00:21:00] the communication. But I think we've all been trained for so many years to just say nothing until we've done it kind of thing and to try and like also feel like we're constantly having to justify our lives because we've, yeah.

You know, as women and a lot of us that are mums too, like, I'm constantly having to be like, Oh, you know, I just say nothing until I can get it done and then be like, Oh, I'm sorry, the kids. Yeah. You know, I'm teaching myself to communicate better in that way as well because I know I can be a bit like, overwhelmed sometimes and I'll, Just bury my head until I'm ready to kind of throw it all out there.

But it's, I think it's the training and trying to reprogram ourselves from that. But again, for me, it's this communication. Like I don't, I'm not going to judge people that everyone's balancing a lot of shit all the time. And it's not, it's not a negative to me. Like if you can't do it, It's not a negative.

Christine: But it is, it's just that communication piece. And that comes across whether it's your team members or it's a client. Um, you know, it's like I've run out of time or I'm not feeling well. I can't get to this or I emailed a client today and [00:22:00] said, I've only got X or this week and I've only got X amount of hours left of an allocation.

This is what is on my list.

Rah: Yeah.

Christine: Is there anything that is really pressing and urgent, um, in, in your eyes from that list? Because obviously I can't get to it all. And that's the communication piece, um, that is really necessary. I think the challenge or a challenge as well. is a little bit of self projecting.

Um, and I know sometimes I, I can do that. And I don't think it comes out, but it's an internal dialogue. So I have been, I've been around, you know, a while. And, um, so my attitude to work or what has to be done or how I will achieve something, um, or how far I will go is, can be quite different to somebody else.

I mean, you know, I was there at nine o'clock. On the last day of my last job, [00:23:00] when I got kicked out of the university, no one was there. But I was finishing off because that was A, the pride, the ethic, everything about me. I wasn't going to leave a shit storm. So I know there's something different. Plenty of other people will go and say, bye five o'clock.

It's my last day I'm gone. And that is fine. But I think, yeah, so me, sometimes I go, I wouldn't do that. And I've got to go, I'm, they're not me. Nobody is me. I feel like that's a bit of a control freak personality type too, cause I do it exactly the same thing. Possibly, possibly. Oh my God, I haven't wrapped it up enough.

But I think the communication thing is the expectation, like communicating that is really important. And sometimes. How we've communicated things, we realise actually no, that's not working or we weren't as clear in our communications and our expectation and our needs. So you've got to go and revisit [00:24:00] that and then that can sometimes be a little bit of, not treading on eggshells, but almost like, because, you know, we don't want to, well you do, sometimes you do.

We can't, we don't want to hurt people. People's feelings, and I'm not saying people's feelings are being hurt, but you know, you've got to be very, very careful because we are all different psyches in a team.

Emily: We interpret stuff based on our own trauma. Like I know that I'm, you know, having to communicate so or transparently sometimes I find.

Terrifying, because I've had that done in a very negative, like received in a very negative way and then had it really negatively thrown back at me before. And, you know, some days we don't get much done, some days we do, and that's so normal. But, you know, when you come from a corporate world where they expect a million things 24 7, it gets, like, I can't, I understand the pressure of not feeling completely comfortable with wanting to be transparent with what's going on either, for that reason as well.

Um, so I know it's a very fine line, but [00:25:00] I know for me, I would never, I would actively make a point to never judge anyone for not being able to cover everything off. Cause I can't cover everything off, you know? So that's the mentality I try and set, but my biggest pet hate and it applies to like, not just business, but like even people in general is that I hate this whole comp, like the mindset of, Oh, well this is all too hard.

So I'm just going to do nothing. Yeah. And I see men do it all the time. Oh yeah. And it's. infuriating, like so infuriating. It's like, and they get away with it. They so do. Cause a woman could never do that. Like, I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm sure there's women that do do it, but like the concept of like, Oh, well, you know, I just, Oh, it's all, it's all too hard.

I'm just gonna stick my head in the sand and ignore it and it might go away. It's like, it's, it's fucking not going to, and I just, it drives me out the wall, because I'm like, if you just communicate this earlier, take the, take the hit, if there's a hit, be honest and upfront with, okay, yeah, I didn't get to this soon enough, or I fucked up, I made a mistake.

[00:26:00] This is how I plan on fixing it. It's gonna make things 60, 000 times better by just being up front and owning it. And I've also found too, I've learned, I've learned after years as well being the, I'm always will be one of the first people if I, you know, not too afraid, but if I can to just be like, yeah, my fault, my fault.

Like we've had a, we've had a client years ago who, um, likes Who would be the, he was a very old school blamey kind of person, and if something didn't get done because he usually was the one that either didn't provide the correct information, completely forgot to do it, or gave it to you two seconds before it was actually needed to be due, or it was just way beyond our capacity and ignored the fact that we told him we didn't have capacity.

But every time he'd kind of start those conversations, well we really need to understand why this didn't happen, you know, we really need to investigate where the process has fallen through, you know, that would. infuriate me to no end. And I'd be the first person to be like, it's completely my fault. Cause I also found as well, the [00:27:00] more I did that, he couldn't actually come back to it.

No, that's right. You've owned

Rah: up to it because it's like it knocks him off his perch completely. Cause I'm

Emily: just like, I'm not, I'm not going on a, on a bloody, which, which hunt. Yeah. We're not CSI. Like, okay, just fucking move on and fix it. Like, do we want to spend 45, 000 hours trying to figure out where this went wrong?

Yep. And especially in an industry where we're all contract worked, the nature of our work is on a contract and it's usually package or hourly rates. You're wasting time and money. You're wasting everyone's time and money. It just drives me a little. I hate blame culture. I'm a really, really anti blame culture.

It's not

Christine: necessary, but it's also anti improvement, you know, everything. There's continuous improvement is, um, a central piece of, of, You as a person, you in business, you as an employee, it doesn't matter what part of your life, we're always continuously improving. So if you just own up to something, it went wrong, not who, who was the cause of it.[00:28:00]

How can we do better? Do we need to change something? Um, and that's an important piece. God, yes. I even say to, you know, Mr. 17, I've, you know, trying to teach him the, you know, if you're fucked up, say you're fucked up. Yep. And do something different next time. It's really

Emily: important for the young ones to learn that pretty early on too.

Yes. Because if they, if they've got the courage to do that from, you know, the teens. Yeah. That'll translate really well into adulthood for them. Oh my God, yeah. As well. And, you know, I think it's, it's something that, yeah. As a, as a person who has been a very big yes person for my life, it's been very hard to, you know, I, I, I'm a massive perfectionist.

I'm really strong. I struggle with that sometimes to just be like, let it go. Yes, you do. Just let it be. Yeah. And, and also to not like, cause you can over, over perfect. And I definitely know I do that with my cakes a lot of the time, but, and just let things, Be and what [00:29:00] I how I perceive something is not how everyone else perceives it as well and just kind of take on external feedback And and whatnot, but it's also I've had enough and I think also women are I know for me Like I'm obviously not a small personality of a human being.

I never really have been but I've also been Belittled and bullied and treated like shit throughout my entire corporate career that it takes a lot like, you know We spoke to The beautiful Mel the other week and she said she lost so much confidence after one of her situations and you know, we've all been in, I've been in jobs that are like that too.

And it makes you start like second guessing your own skills and your own ability because someone is just treating you like shit. Yeah. And it's just, it's a thing if you can learn early on to just know how to hold your own. Yes. God, that will help in life. And I really wish, I'm really hoping to try and draw that into my kids to just trust themselves going forward, especially my daughter.

Trust themselves going forward. Cause I think that's, and that's also the motivation by, I know why I wanted to have my own [00:30:00] business because. I always used to get so shitty at how every single company on the planet didn't seem to understand that if you just looked after your people you could have a million dollar company, if not more, like, it's the people that run the fucking place.

So I've always wanted to have my own business to really emphasize the fact that I don't think it's rocket science to be able to lead. I do understand, however, that You know, there are people with personalities that are more suited to leading than others. And I think that's a tricky thing with corporate because they do, as people promote up, because they have the skill set to do the job.

Doesn't always mean they have the skill set to manage people. Correct. And I think that's, um, where it becomes very tricky and can become very toxic. And it's something that I think, I know there's always leadership courses, like we've all done a leadership course through something way or another. And they don't often, the leadership course I did wasn't really about leading.

It was more about like understanding and managing relationships and, and I mean, that's probably an, is an element of, [00:31:00] of leading now that I've said that out loud, but, um, so it probably wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but, um, you know, it's, it's, it's understanding that whole piece. And it was, it's interesting.

I was speaking to someone today who's moving on to a different job and one of the first things she said was. Yeah. I am my new boss doesn't have kids and it's funny how much that becomes a big problem. Yeah, right. When you are a mum because if someone doesn't have kids. I don't get it. Or they just don't get it and it's, it's really hard to then be given the flexibility that you need.

For a child. Yeah. Because you do have things where it's like, well, fuck, I got to go. Like, they've, they've, you know, run into a brick wall. Well, they're really, really sick and I got to take them home from school or you just have stuff that comes up and that has to come first. And it's a major factor with people when they're trying to find jobs and start new jobs and deciding where they want to be with their life.

They need that flexibility. And I've had managers that have not had children and had just oral. [00:32:00] Uh, male, and have children, but have a woman, a wife that stays at home.

Christine: Yep. Well, I've

Emily: had

Christine: an experience where, uh, my manager was female. My manager had had a baby and experienced maternity leave and coming back to work.

And she was, um, the hardest, Most unforgiving, most unempathetic, hard ass bitch, um, to work for.

Emily: Sometimes, sometimes the women are actually worse.

Christine: Yeah, and to tell you, you know, I came off mat leave and I mentioned earlier that there's two jobs in my life that I cried at. Well, this was the second one. Right.

Um, coming back, you know, unsupported. She, she had a husband who went and picked her up. I picked up the kid from, you know, child care, so she was there late, there was an expectation, this was event management, you don't have children, um, when you're an event manager, um, [00:33:00] that it doesn't mix, um, I learnt that the hard way, it was my, the love of my life, my career.

Had to change that up, wouldn't change a thing, um, however, unforgiving, I thought, I thought I would have had a little bit more support. So I lasted, um, not even 11 months. After returning, and it finished my event management

Rah: career.

Christine: Which is so sad. It is very, very sad. So, um, Yeah, it's, it was a strange circumstance.

So I think you're very lucky when you get totally family friendly or circumstantial friend, you know, friendly. I mean, there's certainly, you know, different times in your life where you need the support of your upper management and your colleagues. So I know the day I got the phone call. Um, from the nursing home to say my mother was unwell [00:34:00] and, um, you know, I needed to come up the coast and I could walk into my manager and just say I've got the phone call about mum.

I could just take off, I just walked away, um, sun and air was seven at the time, I just walked out, walked up the coast and I didn't come home for three days. So, you know, and that was it. And that was a woman who was not a mother, but she had an older mother that she had to manage. So, I think. Also empathy.

A lot of empathy. Absolutely. So, there's different times in your life that you need support for non work stressors, um, and there's some really good people, um, for that. Whether they are parents. You know, parents, children, whatever, um, children of parents. Um, yeah, it's just having that, that really, um, empathetic, caring, well being attitude, um, [00:35:00] to look after.

The people that help your day to day. Yeah.

Rah: So I'm starting to think like, if we're going to turn this episode into a blog post, it's almost like the four things to me, it's your culture and your onboarding, but then also having trust. Absolutely. And then the open communication. Yes.

Christine: And, and you need to be, and being accountable.

Like I think. People in your team need to know that they can raise their hand and raise an issue. So I know that goes to trust, but I feel like it goes a lot, a lot beyond. It's about empowering. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely right. Empowerment of everybody is important.

Rah: Yeah. And that's interesting as well, because that's something I've talked about a lot in a previous life.

I had Filipino VAs. Yes. On my team. Yep. Um, so I wasn't. I'm not directly responsible for recruiting them, but you know, I was involved with interviewing and then I would be managing them. Um, and one of [00:36:00] the things that we learnt through the agency that we'd used, actually, they said the way Filipino people work is they say, yes, master.

Christine: You know,

Rah: they will do whatever you tell them. And even if they think something's not quite right, they will trust you over their own judgment and they won't speak up,

Emily: which is so submissive and horrible.

Rah: Yeah. Um, but apparently, yeah, apparently that is a cultural thing, which is a bit

Emily: like some of the Japanese culture.

Yeah, exactly.

Rah: Yes. But then it was great because we were given permission to make sure, like to keep saying to people as part of their induction on boarding. Every day, every meeting, every task, if you have any questions or if, you know, what do you think?

Emily: Do

Rah: you think doing it this way is a good idea? And then that made our Filipino VA team.

So we ended up having like four or five. Yes. So we had admin, we had website people, like we had different [00:37:00] areas, but we had people all from the Philippines and it worked really beautifully because we had encouraged that part of them. Yep. And some of them, they're still working there. And I left, I left years ago and they're still, you know, they're still on staff.

Um, we, because they've had that encouragement and it hasn't been a, Submissive relationship for them,

Emily: but it's funny how often it's still, it's still a problem. Like even, I mean, we're not to that extent, but you know, I've, I've forever in my life been labeled as outspoken or, you know, a hotheaded, I mean, and maybe also don't help myself by referring to myself like that.

Yeah. Um, yeah. But, you know, I've always been there. If you were a man,

Rah: you would be described as strong willed. Exactly,

Emily: exactly. I'd be a well liked executive level dude. Yes, that's right, yeah. But it, you know, I, I've, I've sat in meetings where they've asked for feedback from like the level that I was at and had a manager, superior manager that was like two or three levels above me being like, Oh, I knew you'd be the first person to talk.[00:38:00]

Yeah. And it's like, well, you make me feel like shit now. Fuck off. Yeah. And been like, I'm sitting here because. I know I have the confidence to speak up and everyone else in this room will not. And the fact that you've just said that to me means that now the rest of them will not want to talk, you know, like you've just killed this.

You wanted legitimate feedback and now you fucked it. That

Rah: example that he's giving. He's fucked himself. Exactly. Like, and it's just,

Emily: and I've had that, I've always been the outgoing, the outspoken, the, you know, loud, the, the difficult, the difficult person for my whole life. And it's just, it's something that's ridden around in my life forever.

And I'm kind of like, I'm actually fucking proud of that now.

Rah: Well, because you've got standards and expectations that you're going to leave a job and like a position within a business or the business entirely, you want to leave it better than when you started.

Emily: Exactly. And it's, it's, I mean, it hasn't helped either, because it means that sometimes it ends up being more confrontational than not.

And I don't really like conflict. No one really [00:39:00] does, but it's, Like something that I am, you know, proud of, and I, if my daughter got called that, I'd be fucking proud. I raised her right. She knows how to stand up for herself and will not take crap from anyone because we've all dealt with so much of it.

Rah: It's like that little girl statue that's in front of the bull at, um, on Wall Street in New York. That little girl that's like, in her little Matilda pose. Yeah,

Emily: that's what you want to see. It's sad. It's sad that this is the world we live in, but it's also why we are all doing what we're doing, right? We're all, whether you choose to be someone that manages people or doesn't manage people, you know, it's very much everyone's individual preference and the ones that are managing people are definitely trying to correct some wrongs that they've experienced in their life.

Um, or I've naturally fallen into it and may not be suited to it.

Christine: Yeah, well, it's interesting you say not suited, so there's, um, I think instances about supporting team and creating an awesome positive culture, and we talk about leadership, or is ident is really recognising and identifying the skill set of your team members.[00:40:00]

I had been promoted, um, at a, I was again back in my previous life, City Hotel, And, um, I got promoted to the event manager role. I was very good at what I did and I loved what I did. And, um, I could totally, you know, I exceeded budget and sold the event space like it was going out of style. But I got promoted, the manager left, so I, you know, went up to that.

Well, it wasn't about me. Managing a team. It was about managing the budget. I am not a numbers person. I outsource for that. And we'll talk about outsourcing in another episode. Um, but that's not my strength. But that had to be my strength. And management meetings, reporting. I, you know, well, you stopped, you stopped being able to do what you loved.

So, and I remember, you know, Going back and saying, I don't want this role anymore. Going to, you know, I want to go back to what I [00:41:00] was. I love what I do. But I

Emily: don't realize that the more you move up in a company, it becomes less about the actual work itself and more about the actual business.

Christine: So, you know, I know that it's important for us to have a team ready for the clients to come in, have a team with a varied range of skill sets so that when that client arrives, you know, we've got, we've got the solution for them and matching.

Um, the person to the role. Um, and that's a very important piece because we cannot afford to set up anyone to fail because we were setting ourselves up to fail, um, by doing that. Um, and that's a very important thing to, um, Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we could talk about this forever. I think so. I really do. But I suppose it's time to wrap up.

Well, it probably is kind of time to wrap up and, and give the podcast a yes.

Emily: If anyone listening has had some shocking [00:42:00] experiences before, even really good ones at the end of the spectrum. Yeah. Um, with either their own experiences as a manager or they're like managing really horrendously hard people or has had a very horrible situation being managed by someone who clearly does not know how to do it or the opposite, really, really fabulous, fabulous, happy la la land.

We love it all. Send it through to us, to our, um, to our email account and we will read it out and give you a little digest of what we think. of that situation. We would love to, to hear a bit more about that. That would be great. So, yeah, so we'll put the

Rah: email address in the show notes now that we're becoming professionals.

But we also put the fun count. Yep. How many facts we give. So what's the email address? Hello at hello at

Emily: f around and find out podcast. com. au. Just f around. F around it. Just F. Yes. I can't do

Rah: the whole word. Can't put a nesterisk in a domain name. No you

Christine: can't. Tell me what's going

Rah: on with

Christine: that. After all these years, why we can't?

You think you think it'd [00:43:00] be smart. You think so? So this has been another great conversation. We're sitting here at the podcast studio at the Bella Vista Hotel. Um, we've got our, um, Illegal beverages in the podcast studio. Don't tell them. Uh, the chips have gone cold. We've got cronuts ready to celebrate.

We certainly do. But there's a lot of light color and movement happening in here and it's just more than our clothes. Yes,

Rah: it's more than our clothes. Yes, it's more than just my hair. Absolutely. Nice

Christine: change. So, thank you everybody for listening today. Thank you. And um, yes, please leave us a review and share

Rah: us with all your friends.

We would love it. And yeah, we'll see you for the next step. Peace out homies. Woo!

Bye.