113: How to Get Promoted Fast AND Make Your Employees Love You with Jamie Newman

Pete Mockaitis
Jamie, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Jamie Newman
Well, I’m excited to be here, Pete. Looking forward to it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m sure that you’ve been asked this question more than once, but I can’t resist because it’s such a great title you have with your podcast, “Your Best Manager.” Can you tell us who was your best manager, and how did he or she influence your show being called just that?

Jamie Newman
It’s funny because you’re actually the first person to actually ask me this question.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, really?

Jamie Newman
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh. And I thought, “That’s not original at all, Pete.” Okay, good. All right.

Jamie Newman
Yeah, it is, and I’m not really sure why. And I’ve had a very long time to think about this answer and I’ve decided to cop out a little bit, just like many of my guests do, and not just name one because one of the things that I’ve found, and I’ve found this to be true through talking to so many people as well, but there are certain people that come into your life and into your career at different places that have different meanings. So in some essences, I couldn’t pick just one that was my best.
However, to avoid a full cop-out, I will tell you that the first corporate manager I had, her name was Ivana Tolusic. She’s Croatian, so I think that’s the right way to pronounce her last name. She probably made the most significant memory for me, for my career. So I worked at McDonald’s for five years and then I landed this corporate job. And it was maybe my first month working for her, and she said, “Hey, we should go out for dinner. I’d like to meet your wife.” And I was like, “That’s weird.”
Normally, at least my thought of business was “Well, hey, it’s about you and me. You’re my boss, I’m your employee, and we can go out for dinner, but why would you want to meet my wife?” And we went out for dinner, and almost the entire conversation was between Ivana and my wife Christina. And she was just telling Christina about what the job looked like, what the expectations were, how I was going to be managed, who she was, because she was a woman and if I’m staying late at the office, I don’t know how good of a call it is if I say, “Hey, honey, I’m going to be home late. I’m spending time at the office alone with Ivana.”
So she was just really intentional about explaining everything she possibly could about our relationship, about the company, about the job to my wife. And it just meant so much to me not only as an example of how to build relationships and an example of how to be a good manager, but personally, I was like, “This woman, this manager of mine actually cares.” Not only about me, but cares about my wife and my family. So that was the most significant memory. And again, I’ve had a lot of great managers. I’ve been privileged. But that’s the one that stands out most.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that is powerful, yes. And that sticks with you, and it happened right at the very beginning of things.

Jamie Newman
Yeah. And go figure. Some of the most amazing times I’ve had in my career have been meals with my employees and their significant others when I’ve had them.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. You took it, you ran with it, and that’s wise. So we were talking back and forth. I mean, I think that there’s many potential points of intersection that you and I have with regard to our shows and our audiences, and so I guess I am copping out a little bit by taking two topics in one. But here we go. So I was so intrigued in our back and forth talking about great people, of which I think our podcast listeners are. And I’m not just being patronizing. I buy that in terms of the commitment to development and the cool things that they’re doing and I’m hearing from them.
So I want to talk about great people like our listeners, and on two facets. I guess the light side and the dark side. What these folks need to do to get promoted and advance quickly. And the dark side: What causes great people to leave right under their managers? So with that said, can we kick it off and say what are some principles and tips and tactics you share for those looking to get promoted and move quickly up their careers?

Jamie Newman
Yeah. And I think it’s funny because there’s a lot of people that really want to get promoted, but kind of just sit at their desk and don’t know what to do or don’t know how to do it or don’t do anything. And one of the most powerful things that young professionals, actually at any level that a professional can do to get themselves closer or one step closer to where they want to be is to actually just make it known and tell somebody.
It’s so funny. I mean, if you listen to employees complain… I recruited for eight years, and so one of the things you’d find within recruiting is that you talk to a lot of people that don’t like where they work and they complain. And oftentimes, they say, “I should be x. I should have been promoted by now,” but when you ask them, “Well, have you asked for a promotion?” or “Have you told people what you want?” they go, “Oh, yeah, kind of. They should tap me on the shoulder.” And I felt the same way.
So that’s the first, most critical, absolutely you need to do this, is make it known because one of the funny things is if you actually were to put yourself in a manager’s shoes and think about “How has the manager actually managed?” their performance is measured by the output of their team, by their accomplishments. And one of those accomplishments is a manager’s legacy or the manager’s ability to take people within their team and have them perform highly and get promoted. So managers want their employees to get promoted when there are opportunities. So if you want to get promoted, you should tell your manager. It’s super simple, but it is the most absolutely critical thing you can do to advance your career is to tell somebody.

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds like it makes some great sense, and so I guess how would you recommend articulating that optimally? It’s probably more than “Hey, I want to be promoted.” How do you say that just right in a way? I guess I’m thinking that some people could have some concerns, like “Oh, my manager will think I’m ungrateful or I’m unhappy or I want to escape him or her.” So how do you go about having that conversation?

Jamie Newman
Yeah. I’m going to say it may not be like reverse psychology here, but a little bit. So I would go in from a standpoint of… I don’t want to say flattery, but you want to put your manager in the position of feeling like they have control and that this is their idea. And so one of the things you can do is you can just ask, “Hey, where do you see me in my career? What opportunities do you think are available? And where do you want me to be at the end of this year or at the end of this quarter? What are you looking for from me?”
And what that does is it puts a manager in a position where they’re looking at the future you, and the future you is going to be a better version of yourself. And from there, you can actually start talking about opportunities in performance because those two are going to be pretty close and tight. If the manager says, “I don’t really… I have no idea. I don’t know where I want you to be,” well, that’s a good time to be like, “Hey, can we set some goals? I’d like to do well. I’d like to make you look good. I’d like to advance my career. Can we sit down and talk about that?”
But you want to put the onus on the manager to almost make them feel like they’re having an impact and an influence on you, which they are. I mean, they’re your biggest tickets. Sometimes, we think we’ve got to hop over our manager to get to the manager’s manager, but your direct manager has a huge voice and a huge pull when it comes to promoting you internally. But those things, also, when you talk about “Hey, where do you want me to be?” they lead to the other things that you need to do to get promoted.
And the first one is you need to be a top performer. If you walk into your manager’s office and say “Hey, where do you see me? Where do you want me to be?” they’re going to go straight to performance, and your ability to get yourself promoted and advance your career is going to come down to being a top performer in your role. And that’s probably the first place this conversation is going to start.
And then from there, you can flip the conversation around to be like, “Okay, then what happens? So if I accomplish this, if I get to where you want me to be,” you don’t want to say it like this, but it’s like, “What’s in it for me? Where am I going to go if I accomplish these things? If I’m a top performer, what does that mean?” And just ask the question and almost get the manager to start painting a picture of your future opportunities.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that’s great. “If I am a top performer, what does this mean?” And I remember once when I was an audacious intern, I just asked the manager. It was like, “So what do I need to do to make the ‘Should we give Pete an offer?’ question and an absolute slam dunk yes?” It was like, “Hahaha. I like your gumption.” He sounded just like that.

Jamie Newman
I believe it.

Pete Mockaitis
And so I think that’s great, just by asking “What does a top performer mean to you?” But above and beyond the picture that gets painted there, what sorts of themes and patterns have you identified that really make the difference between the top performer and the middling performer?

Jamie Newman
That’s a good question, but it also kind of depends on what you’re doing. It’s interesting. So after working with so many managers through my years, one of the things that I’ve found is there’s a lot of managers that don’t actually have a way to manage or to measure performance. And so, sometimes, it can be so difficult to actually know what is a top performer, because what you want is you want something that’s based on a number because a number is controllable and you can track your progress.
But oftentimes, it’s things like “Well, I want you to be taking initiative,” or “I need you to keep doing what you’re doing,” or “I need you to step up and take some risks.” And there’s no way to actually measure if you’re doing that. So I think the actual top performers find a way to measure that, and they ask me the second question of “Okay, what does that actually look like?” versus just accepting the “Hey, go be the best that you can be.”
And those numbers could come down to anything from customer service responses to feedback from clients to the number of phone calls that you make or the number of sales that you get or the ability to get projects done on time or the ability to take on more projects. There’s a lot of different ways. And so I think in order to be a top performer, you need to understand and ask enough questions to be able to clearly map out “What does a top performer look like in my job, and how do you actually know if I’m doing it?”

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Yes. And so you would ask, “What does that look like?” or to have some examples or to maybe just put a context there for the manager, like “So on this project we are working on, what would stepping up and taking risks look like there?” So you can get all the more real.

Jamie Newman
Yeah. I’ll give you an example. So I hired a number of project managers for an engineering firm, and the only way that their performance was measured was based on feedback from the client. And so if a project manager were to walk into his manager’s office and say, “Hey, I want to be a top performer,” that manager’s only way to measure it would be to say, “All right, well, you’ll be a top performer when the client tells me you’re a top performer.”
And so the second question there is “Okay, what does that look like?” How do you actually get feedback? Do you ask? Are you actually calling them to ask how I’m doing? Because that’s totally cool, but you could map out and come up with ways to influence and almost help guide your client to then call and give feedback to your manager.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly.

Jamie Newman
Yeah. It may not be necessarily the right way to go about it, but from there, you may go like, “Okay, how often are you meeting the client? What are you asking them? What are they telling you? What’s the feedback you’ve heard so far?” So sometimes, you’re not going to get necessarily a clear answer, but by asking additional questions, you can help kind of map out “What does that actually look like?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s really good. And I don’t think there’s any shame in asking folks to provide that feedback. What I’ve found so interesting is that working with many of these guests who are tremendous authors, folks I really respect, they’ll ask me, “Hey, can you review my book on Amazon?” and I’ll say, “Yes, sure.” But I have a bit of a backlog, if anyone is listening. I’m getting to it, I promise, because I want to read a fuller section of the book to feel more authentic in that review as opposed to maybe the 30 pages I’ve skimmed.
So that’s great. There’s no qualms, then. I guess it’s the theme is asking upfront, “What does a great performance look like?” and then channeling the folks if it is about feedback to go ahead and do that, particularly when folks are feeling extra appreciative and thanking you and asking if there’s anything I can do for you. Whatever. It’s like now that you know that this matters, you’ll make that request. “Call so and so, and tell them what you thought of this.”

Jamie Newman
Yeah. I love that you bring that up because there’s absolutely no shame in doing that. And it’s funny because at my last company, we did a whole bunch of customer service surveys and we would call our contractors and our clients and say, “Hey, how do you think I’m doing?” and they’d say, “Oh, I think you’re doing great.” “Cool. Would you mind filling out this survey that’s going to be sent to you?” I mean, you’re not trying to change someone’s opinion, but people naturally communicate when they’re upset more often than when they’re happy.
And so if I was that project manager, I’d go straight to my client and be like, “How do you think I’m doing?” If they say, “Not good,” I’d be like, “Okay, how can I get better?” But if they say, “You’re doing great,” I’d be like, “Would you mind telling my boss? That’s the way he measures my performance.” And if the person is happy with you, they’re going to want to do that. So I think that’s a great point to bring up.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely.

Jamie Newman
No shame.

Pete Mockaitis
And I guess I don’t know what kind of idealistic world I was living in before, but I think I just used to presume. And maybe it’s who knows what proportion of reviews and positive feedback things come unsolicited from the sheer delight spontaneously that people have versus they’ve been asked. But I think it’s through a fair number of the Yelp reviews or the Amazon reviews or any kind of positive feedback and referral mechanisms are happening because someone asked for it, too. And that’s totally cool, and it’s not cheating. Maybe I’m just coaching my former self more than anybody else here.

Jamie Newman
No. I think you’re absolutely right. It’s just the way things go. It’s the same with… I don’t know if you’ve heard this conspiracy theory before about cellphone companies, how there’s this theory out there that they’ll intentionally screw up your bill from time to time just because they want you to call and have a great customer service experience, because if you have a cellphone provider and have zero issues with that, you could be getting the most phenomenal service but you’ve got zero issues. You may not notice, and therefore, you have very low loyalty. But if you have a problem and you go get it resolved, all of a sudden you’ve had a different type of experience. And that’s one of the ways that they apparently build loyalty.
I don’t know if it’s true, but the concept is that people sometimes don’t notice when things are going well because there’s nothing to complain about. And so they don’t think about communicating it because really, if you’re doing a good job at something, the other person almost shouldn’t notice. Like if you go and buy a pair of shoes, sometimes you won’t notice great customer service because they’re just so easy. You just went in and bought shoes. What’s the big deal?
But if you actually thought about it, the other person smiled and brought you two or three pairs, and maybe they asked you personal questions and you just didn’t notice because it was flawless. You walked out of there happy, but you had no idea why and you had no reason to go back online and fill out a survey other than there’s $100 for you potentially if you follow what’s on the receipt, right?

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. And that just also sort of renews my gratitude for maybe all of the ordinary functional things of the world. I mean, as we’re speaking, I’ve got an RCN gigabit (that’s right, 1000 megabits) connection which has not skipped out on me once since I’ve gotten it installed in the new place for just over a month. And that’s a lovely thing. I guess if they asked, I would tell the world that I’m pleased with my RCN. I know that’s not always everyone’s experience with having a cable provider.

Jamie Newman
Yeah, true.

Pete Mockaitis
So that’s cool. All right. So anything else you want to say about the light side, like how great people get promoted and what they need to be doing?

Jamie Newman
Yeah. So I really need to touch on two points, and there’s really five things that you can do to get promoted. Obviously, the first is make it known. The second is be a top performer. But the next few things that you can do is act as if. So find opportunities to start doing the role that you want and start showcasing yourself. Now, that’s going to be based on how much opportunity you have, but you can take on additional things while not affecting your performance. You’re going to demonstrate to senior leaders and to your manager that you’re capable of taking on the new role.
The next piece is peer endorsement. You want people talking about you. And one of the ways you do that is by being a leader sometimes before you’re a leader, by serving people, by going above and beyond, by taking opportunities, by communicating so that when… And I’ve sat here. You’ve got a team of managers sitting around the table and they talk about who’s ready to be promoted. The person who got promoted is the person everyone is talking about.
And we probably don’t have time to go into this too much, but there’s a fear of “Well, that’s politics, and I don’t want to play the political game.” But managers make decisions based on what they know. And if people have no idea what you’re doing, they’re not going to endorse you. And a peer endorsement or another manager above a level, like one of your manager’s peers is endorsing you. When people walk into a manager’s office and say, “Hey, you need to look at what Pete is doing,” or “You need to look at what Jamie is doing,” that’s a huge ticket to getting promoted.
And then the last thing you can do is have a replacement plan ready. Sometimes, as much as this may suck, some people don’t get promoted because their manager doesn’t have a plan to replace that person. And it can sometimes feel like, “Well, I’m performing. I’m acting as if. I’m one of the best here. People love me. Why can’t I get promoted?” And the manager is sitting in the office, feeling like, “Ugh, I want to promote him, but I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him.”
So if you can participate in your own replacement plan and actually talk about that with your boss, you can expedite that process. And sometimes, that means recruiting. Maybe it’s easy for me to say. I worked in a recruiting company. But is it that hard to pick up the phone and call five friends and ask them if they know anyone who would want to do what you’re doing and almost take matters into your own hands to find that replacement? So those are the five things that you can do to get promoted.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s handy. And that finding your own replacement is quite insightful. I think it’s easy to overlook that, so good catch there. Well, now, let’s talk about the dark side. When there’s some great people and maybe you’re in a managerial role and you’ve got some of these people who are working for you and contributing well, what causes them to want to leave and quit?

Jamie Newman
Well, I’m going to burn through a bunch of these reasons, and then we’ll talk about a couple. This is not the number one, but it’s the first one we’re going to talk about because it automatically comes up. Compensation. If someone is not compensated where they think they should be, they’re likely to quit. Work-life balance is a big reason why top performers quit. They don’t feel like they have balance, whatever that means. They don’t feel valued. And I don’t mean like they’re not getting enough hugs, but sometimes being valued is feeling valuable, and that comes down to responsibility. Their manager  . Their company sucks.
And this is an interesting or a surprising one that I found, but sometimes, good people quit because they either feel like or they’re actually not capable of performing the job, which seems wrong because they’re a top performer. If we’re talking about good people quitting, we’re not talking about bottom of the barrel. We’re talking about why your best employees may quit. And one of the reasons may be their capabilities or their perceived capabilities. And what I mean by that is, sometimes, you may have somebody who’s doing a good job, but inside their head, they’re not, and they feel like they’re failing and they feel like they’re not good enough or they feel like an impostor. And so they carry a bunch of stress and may end up leaving. And in other times, they’re faking it. And so it looks like a top performer, but they’re really not.
And then the last reason why good people quit is they’re in the wrong job and they should be doing something else, which kind of sucks because there’s nothing really you can do in that situation other than expedite them leaving so that you can get the right person on the team. So that’s a little bit of a touchy one. But those are basically the several reasons why good people quit.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s interesting. And so, you said they weren’t quite in order by, I guess, frequency. But if you had to take a crack at it, what would you say are the top one, two, three in terms of most frequently arising primary driver of leaving?

Jamie Newman
I’d say it’s the work-life balance issue because that’s the excuse for everything. And it’s so hard to define, but people make decisions based on what they want to do. And work-life balance, it isn’t necessarily ours. What I mean by that is people want… And maybe this is especially true for the millennial generation, but people want to feel like they’re doing something meaningful in their work and they want to also feel like they do meaningful things in their personal life. And when they feel… And I’m using the word “feel” because it’s not necessarily black and white. When they feel like those things aren’t aligned, they’re likely to consider quitting.
And so work-life balance can show up as compensation. I’m not making enough money in my work to achieve what I want personally in my life. Or when I go to work, I don’t feel valued and I don’t feel like I’m getting out of work what I want to impact my personal life. Or my manager doesn’t understand what I want in my personal life and doesn’t understand what needs I have personally. Or my company doesn’t understand and they’re making me work too many hours, or they don’t let me want to go to the gym when I want to go to the gym. They’re too restrictive.
So you can almost have all of the other reasons summed up in whatever someone’s version of work-life balance is. And again, you can’t really define it because work-life balance doesn’t actually exist. If you actually were to map out what equal balance is, you’d have to go based on hours and they’re never going to be perfect.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Interesting. So you’re saying here the most cited reason is work-life balance, but that’s a bit amorphous as to what folks really mean by that because it could be any number of these other drivers. So then–

Jamie Newman
Then what’s the real actual reason?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Jamie Newman
It’s going to come down to their manager. As the age-old cliché saying goes, “People don’t quit companies. They quit managers.” A good manager can avoid all of these reasons or expedite someone leaving. The worst thing a manager can do is let somebody be in the wrong role and let someone fail, which is why I say expedite. But people leave bad managers because you take any one of these reasons. Compensation. If someone leaves and says it’s because of compensation (and again, it goes back to work-life balance), they could really be leaving their manager who wasn’t able to articulate how they can achieve their compensation goals.
So having a crappy manager who doesn’t build relationships, who doesn’t value you, who doesn’t share opportunities, who doesn’t set goals with you, who doesn’t help you achieve your potential, who doesn’t care about you, who talks down to you, all those things that make a bad manager, that is the number one reason why people quit. And again, people don’t use the word “work-life balance” when quitting typically. Sometimes they do, depending on the company. But when people talk about their reason for wanting to leave, almost always, it comes down to a bad relationship with their manager.

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm. Okay. So now, then, from the manager’s perspective, you laid out some things that make a manager bad. What would you say are some of the best return on energy things a manager can do to keep great people sticking around?

Jamie Newman
All right. If a manager can find out what’s important to their employee, then they can find ways to engage and retain them. Ultimately, that comes down to relationships, but your primary goal as a manager, your job is to produce results. And the way that you produce results is to help your employees produce results. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s about business.
But one of the ways you help an employee produce results is by motivating, inspiring, and keeping them engaged so that they can reach their potential. And the only way that that will happen is if you can attach some sort of personal reward to high performance in the role. And the only way you can attach a personal reward to high performance in the role is if you know what’s important to that person.
And so that comes in many forms, which is why I say it’s simple. It’s just build a relationship and find out what’s important. But it can end up being difficult because in order to actually find that out, you need to be able to build a relationship and have an honest conversation. You need the person to actually be able to tell you what they want. You need to be able to understand how your company operates and how they can actually attain what they want personally.
So you’ve got to be able to figure that out. You’ve got to be able to understand how performance can impact compensation. You need to be able to understand how to set goals and how to help your employees set goals. You need to understand and ask good questions about how people feel appreciated, what they want from you as a manager.
And that’s not even touching on you need to be credible. People need to trust you. You need to be authentic. So there’s a lot of things that go into being a good manager, but at the heart of it, it’s understanding what your employee actually wants and being able to show them how they can attain it by working for you and your company.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, when you say what’s important to them and what they want, I guess you can answer that question in all kinds of ways. Some of them sound professional, like “I want to have bigger challenges and growth and expand my mind and skillset,” or it could be very much on the personal side. It’s like “I want to be able to go to all the most amazing restaurants in Chicago. You know?

Jamie Newman
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
And so you’re saying regardless of what side it ends up, you want to figure out a means by which you can help make that happen.

Jamie Newman
Absolutely. That’s exactly it because the person who cares about travel and food and restaurants, well, if you want to go to the best restaurants in Chicago (let’s assume you live there), that’s going to cost money. And you can still find a way to make a professional goal out of that because it’s like, “Hey, how many restaurants are there? Let’s build that out. Let’s map out your goals for the year, and let’s find a way to tie your performance into being able to achieve those things.”
Now, the only argument against that would be, let’s say, it’s going to cost $4000 and the person already has $4000 and doesn’t need the job. You’re not really going to be able to attach much to that. But the other aspect would be “What if performance doesn’t immediately result in compensation improvement?” Well, their performance, how is that actually going to achieve them going to restaurants?
But here’s the thing. If you’re a good goal-setter, that’s just one goal. I’d recommend that managers set at least three personal goals and three professional goals with their employees. But just by finding that out and just by understanding that those restaurants are important, and helping your employee build out a personal plan to achieve that, you’re building a fantastic relationship and you’re demonstrating to your employee that you care about them as a person, which is going to build loyalty, but it’s also going to open up opportunities for you to coach them and for you to find opportunities to make them feel valued.
Something as simple as “Hey, where’s the next restaurant you’re going to? When are you going?” “I’m going next Thursday.” “Awesome. Do you want to leave 30 minutes early? Hey, if you get this done, this done, and this done, I’ll let you leave 30 minutes early.” You can find ways to allow them to see the correlation of work-life balance and see the correlation between how doing well in their role can actually help them achieve personal things, if that makes sense.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, certainly. That is good. And I would love to hear maybe a couple more examples of that creative intersection that you’re able to determine. Like you discovered a need, a desire, a goal that’s important to someone, and then you, in your managerial capacity, are bridging the gap to that thing. So you gave a couple of examples for how you might do it in the restaurant world. What are some other cool connections that you’ve seen in your work?

Jamie Newman
Yeah. I’ll use a really common goal. It’s January when we’re recording this right now. Losing weight has nothing to do with work at all. However, as a manager, you should get excited if one of your team members wants to lose weight.

Jamie Newman
So losing weight or getting in shape has a lot of benefits aside from what we see physically, right? I mean, you think of energy levels. And when you think of focus, when people are feeling great, they’re going to perform better. So a manager can be excited if that’s a goal for the team member, but there are certain things like understanding and helping them figure out a schedule that’s going to work for them to go to the gym, or being able to just talk about how stress and anxiety can contribute to poor eating habits. Even physically, I’ve been in the worst shape of my life when I’m the most stressed at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Yep.

Jamie Newman
I don’t have any science behind that. I know it’s true.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ll second this.

Jamie Newman
So when you know that’s important to your employee and you can create an environment where they feel they’re flexible to do things that are going to help them achieve that. But that one is a little bit of a sensitive one because you never want it to be like, “Hey, so how much weight have you lost?” It’s kind of a weird question, especially if you’re a man managing a woman. But there’s ways to tie those things together and just help your employee understand. “Okay, what does that look like?” Eating well, what does that look like? Sleeping well, what does that look like from a stress standpoint, from a workload standpoint? So there’s a lot of things that you need to get creative there.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And I’m just thinking right there, it’s like, “Hey, if you prefer to work out during lunch time, I’ll make a note to not schedule any meetings at 1:30 because you’ll probably need that time to go to the gym and shower.” And what’s so cool is I could really see the momentum building on this because from an employee perspective, it’s like, “Oh my gosh. My boss opened up this time for me to work out. I don’t feel like working out, but I kind of think I should.” And then they do, and then you’re glad that you did, and then you’re appreciative of the manager for making that happen and being a real part of ultimately the victory. I can really see how this builds momentum and cascades into tremendous loyalty.

Jamie Newman
Yeah, because let’s say things happen in a perfect calendar year, and no matter what, your employee is not going to quit for a year. If January 1 or the first week, you sit down with your employee, set a couple of personal goals, say “Hey, I want to buy a new car this year. I want to go to the restaurants. I want to lose weight,” and some professional goals, and you tie those altogether, every single opportunity you have to coach can go back to what’s important to them. And you can actually be that accountability partner and that coach that not only helps them achieve some professional things, but personal things.
But at the end of the year, when they’ve accomplished those goals and you celebrate some personal things that have nothing to do with work, yeah, the loyalty, but just think of how that employee is going to feel. They’re going to look at you as their manager and their company as a primary reason why they achieve something personal, something really important to them, something that made their life better. And when you talk about their why or whatever, they can’t imagine going anywhere else because they’re going to be terrified that they’re going to get a manager that doesn’t care about them.
I worked for eight years with my last company, and one of the biggest reasons I never quit was because I was terrified… Well, obviously, I did quit at the end, but one of the biggest reasons I never quit when times got hard was because I was terrified that I wouldn’t find another company or I wouldn’t find another manager who actually cared about me personally. And that was something that I was fortunate to have common throughout each of the people that managed me is they actually cared about me as a human, and I thought, “I know so many managers that don’t do this. What if I leave, think the grass is greener, and go to another company and find out that that manager doesn’t care about me personally? I can’t give up. I’ve got to push through.”
So there’s a huge piece of loyalty. And go figure. When you push through tough times, when you get outside your comfort zone, you’ll accomplish great things as well.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, Jamie, thank you. Tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure that you get to mention before we shift gears and talk about the fast faves?

Jamie Newman
Yeah. Just one thing that I’m sure some people listening may be thinking is “Hey, I want to quit my job. How do I know when I should quit my job?” And I won’t spend too much time here, but my short answer is just wait. Give it six months. Whenever you’re thinking about quitting… And I did this myself. I was kind of forced to because we just bought a house, and so I had to wait at least six months before I considered quitting my job.
But I always wanted to quit on top, and I always wanted to make sure that if I was going to resign, if I was going to walk away from something, that I had given it my all. And so I think no matter where you are, outside of safety issues and harassment, you can always give it an extra six months. Those six months look great on a résumé. It allows you to have gone through a challenge. And if you feel the same way six months from where you feel today, it’s time to leave. But you never want to walk away from something not knowing if it could have been better because you didn’t give it the chance.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s very wise. Thank you. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jamie Newman
Yeah. So I don’t know who said this, but it was written on the whiteboard in my boss’ office. It was something like this. “Enjoy the journey as much as the destination.” I just love the thought of we often work toward some end goal and think we’re never going to be happy until we get there, and there’s a lot of good things that you can appreciate in the moments along that journey.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite study or experiment or piece of research?

Jamie Newman
Yeah. So I’ve been referring back to… It’s an article from 2012 in the Harvard Business Review, “We Wait Too Long to Train Our Leaders.” And it’s a huge motivation or inspiration for why I started the company I’ve started. But the average age of a first-time manager is 33. And of course, average means there’s younger and older, but the average age that people get actual leadership training is something like 40 or 44, maybe 42.
So most managers don’t actually get trained to be leaders. I mean, people get trained how to do reports, performance reviews and stuff, but people don’t get trained how to inspire, how to lead, how to build relationships, how to help people reach their potential until they’ve been managing people for eight or nine years. And there’s a lot of casualties with that.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And how about a favorite book?

Jamie Newman
“Winning” by Jack Welch. It’s just really good practical business advice that hits every aspect of management, from how to hire people to core values to how to fire people.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. And how about a favorite tool, whether that’s a product or service or app or thought framework?

Jamie Newman
I’m going to say Google Docs and Sheets and Drive and all those Google things. And I actually didn’t think about this until you asked this question, but I find myself, anytime I need to write anything down, I’m not grabbing a notebook anymore. I’m hopping on docs.google.com and writing it in there because I can access it anywhere.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And how about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours that helps you be awesome at your job?

Jamie Newman
I read the Bible every morning and I write in a journal almost every day. And if I’m not feeling inspired to put pen to paper, I don’t. But I always have my journal out.

Pete Mockaitis
Right on.

Jamie Newman
Which is funny because I just said that I don’t use a notebook.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I get that. Like if you’re in sort of a prayerful zone, somehow the digital blue light… I don’t know. It doesn’t resonate as much for me.

Jamie Newman
Yeah. And if I’m actually reading, I have to turn my computer off, or else I’ll just hear that “Ping!” and then “What’s going on?”

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a particular nugget, a Jamie original that you share that tends to really resonate with folks and get them retweeting and taking notes and all that?

Jamie Newman
Yeah. This goes right back to what we were talking about. Your employees are going to struggle with motivation if they can’t see a correlation between work and personal achievement.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. There it is. And what would you say is the best way to contact you, if folks want to get in touch or learn more?

Jamie Newman
I’ve got everything at yourbestmanager.com. It’s got a podcast. There’s a free 10-day video course on employee engagement, and there’s free webinars, a whole bunch of stuff. Everything I do and all my social media, all that best stuff is through yourbestmanager.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And Jamie, do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d like to issue forth to those seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Jamie Newman
Yes. And this one is… I don’t know. Are you ready?

Pete Mockaitis
Bring it on.

Jamie Newman
Don’t wait for someone else to take you where you want to go. I’ve always said that if I was put in a company with a poor manager, I’d figure out a way to be successful. But I think that too often, when we’re not where we want to be, we just like to blame our circumstances or blame someone else. And when it comes to leadership especially, there are so many free and paid resources out there through books, through online learning, through whatever you want. There’s zero excuse to not put in the effort to figure out a way on your own to go where you want to go.
Now, you do need other people, but the big call to action is just don’t wait for somebody else. If you’re sitting back blaming other people for where you are and you want to go somewhere, take action. There’s so many resources and so many opportunities.

Pete Mockaitis
Brilliant. Well, thank you, Jamie. This has been so much fun. I hope that Your Best Manager is going to be blowing up and that you have great success with what you’re up to here.

Jamie Newman
Why, thank you.