This Podcast Will Help You Flourish At Work

Pete Mockaitis

Bill, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Bill Schaninger

Hey, thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m super excited to dig into your wisdom of your latest book here, Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work. But, first, I got to hear, you’re freshly retired, how is that going for you?

Bill Schaninger

You know, one, it’s pretty awesome. That’s for sure. I do definitely have more degrees of flexibility in my daily calendar than I’ve had ever. It’s still a little strange. If I count all the way back to when I was working at KidsPeace, which is a residential psychiatric treatment center, through to my time in grad school, then joining McKinsey in 2000, it’s been a long run since I’ve had this much flexibility. So, that part is wonderful and awesome.

But now, because, I guess like most things happen when you’re not expecting, I’ve had a run of really interesting things pop up and opportunities, and I just thought maybe I was going to retire, form an LLC, and set up a website, a media kit, and just do some speeches and tour the book, I’m still going to do that, but I’ve had some really interesting opportunities present themselves to me that I’m working through right now. And so, maybe they’ll be an additional chapter that I didn’t quite count on.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, now I’d love to hear a bit about your latest, Power to the Middle. Any particularly fascinating insights that you found in your research there?

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, for sure. Look, everybody who writes a book always wants to come out with why does the book now matter.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, absolutely. It’s like the first third of every business book.

Bill Schaninger

Exactly right.

Pete Mockaitis

It’s like, “Dude, I already bought your book. We could just get to the goods.”

Bill Schaninger

“Yeah, now more than ever.” Like, we used to joke, particularly in the dotcom era, right when I joined McKinsey, it seemed like, particularly against the Y2K stuff and then the war for talent stuff, it was like everything literally led with, “Now more than ever.” And I don’t think that’s the case but what I do think that’s interesting is we’ve had this pretty amazing confluence of things that maybe would’ve been difficult to predict.

Who would’ve guessed a global pandemic was coming? Maybe Dr. Fauci and his colleagues who do infectious diseases said, “Yeah, that was likely, dummy.” But I certainly didn’t know it was going to impact us to that scale. But just prior to that, we’d had that massive run around what was being called future work, which was the impact of automation. Now, we’re seeing the next tranche of that in generative AI. And, at the same time, underneath that, we had a group of people who, when they said, “You can’t come to work because it’s unsafe,” and then we’re working from home, a few months into it, said, “And you know what, I might not come back to work.”

And so, that, the big shifts that we saw in the work, the nature of the work, how it was done, where it was done, when it was done, the workforce, the composition of it, the skillsets required in it, and the workplace, what’s the point of having a workplace, do we need an office, all those things have come around and come right to the fore here in the last 18 months.

And then the good news is we know the answer to a lot of it is the role of the middle manager. That is the good news. Who knows how the work is changing? And what’s going to go back to how it was? And what’s always going to be different going forward? Probably the manager responsible for the work getting done. Who’s going to know what workers can do, and what kind of flexibility we have, and where they need to be redeployed or upskilled? Probably the manager who those people work for.

Who creates an environment that people actually want to come back to, actually want to feel part of that’s really attractive? Again, probably the people leaders who are there. So, that’s the good news. We know the answer. The bad news? We have systemically beaten these roles up, made them the source of derision and mockery, and signal to them that their job is actually administrivia and bureaucracy and meetings, and not the very thing we desperately need them to do, which is be good leaders.

And so, that’s the conundrum. We know the answer but we also know the is the problem. And so, a good portion of this book is saying, “How do we really dig back into the nature of these roles, the people in these roles, and how we give them a fighting chance to be successful?”

Pete Mockaitis

Okay, understood. Well, so I’d love to get a sense for the mockery. Tell us, paint a picture there.

Bill Schaninger

Well, look, I’m 53, and so I’m clearly Gen X. In my lifetime, we had “Wall Street” come out, and Gordon Gekko was supposed to be an antihero, he’s supposed to be a villain.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, greed is good, that guy.

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, greed is good, “Wake up, bud. It’s time to make real money.” That guy was beloved, not reviled. And so, for many of us in the ‘80s, our parents, who believed that they would have cradled the great employment, were fired. Fired from Bethlehem Steel, fired from Mack Trucks, fired from Fuller Company, fired from Lucent. Just to name a few. US Steel, whatever, pick large institution we would’ve all known and loved. GM for certain, Ford, Chrysler.

Well, I’m belaboring that because for the people of the Gen X era, we saw this massive transition of it’s no longer esteemed to be a middle manager at fill-in-the-blank big company because, in many cases, a lot of those jobs went away.

And then you ran that through the ‘90s where it was the run up of, “Oh, now it’s going to be Y2K and the dotcom era, and the fixation on A-talents,” and the people in the middle were treated almost as a disembodied member of the machine. You had office space, you had your TPS reports, “Who moved my stapler?” you had Dilbert as the cartoon. There’s cartoons or cartoons, you know, animation, it was making a mockery of the mindless dolt that was in the middle manager job, someone to be avoided, mocked, endured, and not someone who teaches you the ropes, someone who helps you understand how to get work done, someone who makes sure that you know that you have people around you who care about you.

That, to me, is the kind of the mark where it was no longer viewed as being part of an institution, was something to be respected. And instead, these roles started being viewed as negative. And so, for those who did have talent, then it becomes like, “Well, how quickly can I get in and out of these roles?” So, that would be one, for sure, which is just, at some point, we decided these weren’t respected roles anymore.

The second around the same time, certainly in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, we started getting re-engineering, restructuring, rightsizing, downsizing.

Pete Mockaitis

Rationalizing.

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, right. Exactly. All those are code for, “We’re going to give you more people than you can possibly lead. Maybe you can keep an eye on them. And, really, you’re just there to keep a lid on it and pay attention to the bad actors.” And so, in that case, we’ve given them spans that they can’t possibly lead. And the idea of like six by six, and with apologies to my former competitors, I’m sorry, it is absurd to think that every leadership job can magically have these many numbers of direct reports, and some kind of axiom. It doesn’t work that way.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, a six by six means each manager would have six direct reports, and there are six layers between the CEO and the front, frontliners.

Bill Schaninger

Right. And that’s just absurd. Nothing in life is that simple. Nothing in life is that axiomatic. If you’re a general counsel and you happen to be wonderful at IP law, you’re probably still going to want to really manhandle some of those IP cases but you might grow a few assistant GCs who are good at contracts, who are good at labor, who are good at comp. And then you’ll figure out somebody who’s good at saying what we’re going to send to outside counsel, that kind of stuff.

But, in that case, because there’s a bunch of different disciplines and you’re still carrying a little bit of your own work, you might have a relatively small span of control. If you’re running a call center or an outside salesforce, where the work that everyone does is the same, and you have relatively similar levels of skills, well, okay, in that case, maybe you can have a bigger span because you’re getting an economy of scale and scope.

It’s just saying that the nature of the work, the nature of the unit, the nature of what the leader does themselves should drive span. If you go to a place where you really have real variability in your workforce, and some of those workers are really going to need coaching and development and help, you cannot have a span where you can’t possibly give them the help that they need. So, that, to me, is setting the manager up for failure. It’s not just that you’re setting the manager up for failure, you’re setting the unit up for failure. And you will likely have cultural implications, almost like a negative contagion.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, let’s zoom right in and say you are, in fact, a manager in the middle, and you are facing some of these challenges, what the heck do you do? Are there any top best practices that are really transformative?

Bill Schaninger

We think so. For sure, we spent a lot of time looking and seeing what people were asked to do. The vast majority of time, they were being asked to attend meetings, feed the beast, if you will with administrivia, where they were spending time on planning of some form.

Pete Mockaitis

Meeting about the meeting about the meeting.

Bill Schaninger

That’s right, “We’re going to plan for a process to think about doing some work.” When, really, I’d say job one here is look at the role itself, “What are the jobs to be done?” If the jobs to be done aren’t starting with leading the organization that you’re responsible for, it’s wrong. Job one should be lead the people you’re responsible for, and then all the other stuff comes on.

And, actually, God forbid, you allow some slack. As a bit of a side point here, I think we’ve taken our approach to working capital from a financial working capital standpoint, where we try to really lean it out. We certainly apply that to supply chains, and I think we’ve applied it to people, human capital as well. Like, if a unit sends someone to training, everybody else is going to pick up slack. God forbid someone gets sick, or has a baby, or has something that was unexpected happen in their life, the unit runs down complement.

We’ve just gone through COVID where, in many cases, people were used to running at 65%, 70%, 75% complement, not the full stack. That means it’s been a long time since we actually had a full complement of employees that allowed people to do things like get trained, not be as productive as they might be because they’re brand new.

And so, it ends up creating a situation where managers are like, “I can only have people who are experienced, who can hit the ground running, and magically are perfectly performing from day one.” That never happens, it disappoints everyone, and everyone is under stress from the get because they’re struggling just to keep their nose above water.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is so true, and, in a way, kind of tragic for, not to globalize too much, but I’ll just say it, humanity in terms of what we, as a species, are capable of is severely diminished if there’s an attitude of, “I don’t want to do any investing in the people to make them better and capable. I want them fully formed and ready to go.” One, yeah, good luck. There’s very limited supply of such people. And, two, it’s the aggregate learning, growth, development for workers as a whole is severely diminished, and that’s just a bummer.

Bill Schaninger

Oh, 100%. Just think about the human condition at work where you’re supposed to know everything immediately. No, that’s just not how it works. So much of our time has been to become aware of something, you learn about it, it’s broken up into constituent pieces, you had to practice it a little bit, like the actual idea of developing a skill. What happened to that?

What happened to somebody who was decent standing behind you, hand on the shoulders, saying, “Hey, okay, we’re going to push it here a little bit but we’re not going to let you run off the cliff, all right? Yeah, we’re going to challenge you but we’re going to make sure you’re okay.” That sort of stuff requires time and attention, and should be job one. So, you see the first thing we do, “Job one. Do your job. Lead.”

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I want to dig deep. So, that’s job one and it’s often not done, some folks may not actually have a clear picture of what constitutes leading the people. So, lay it on us, Bill, what is that kind of stuff?

Bill Schaninger

Well, the next one then, for sure, is look at the work that everyone’s doing that’s in your charge. If you were to take the job and break it down into its activity level, automation eliminates very few jobs in their entirety. Automation does, however, eliminate, or could eliminate, a lot of tasks. So, if you were doing old-school cost-cutting, what’s the first thing you’d look at? Demand reduction. Could we look at all the work and say, well, let’s just turn down the volume?” Maybe.

“Could we look at some of the activities and just stop doing it?” Maybe. “Could we tech automate it? Maybe. “Could we reduce variability by not allowing everyone to have their own forms and their own time of the month, get to more of a standard?” Maybe. Okay, so when you do all those maybes, you find out what still needs to be done, and then you give what you should be done to technology, or you give what should be done to automation, or maybe even some out to a vendor who can just offshore it or nearshore it, and do it for you. You will still have something left.

The ability to pull a job apart into its activity pieces, its task components, automate, reduce variability, reduce volume. You have what’s left. Put that back together. Now you look at it, and say, “Okay, is that enough? Is that enough to be a meaningful job? Could people see the purpose of that job, how it fits in with the overall purpose? Can we bolt some things onto it and make a new and more interesting and exciting job that also often happens to line up with what our employees want to do?” That idea of, instead of just being a job eliminator but a job re-imaginer, huge idea and a huge skill. And the person best suited to do it is the manager.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s right because you’ve got to be pretty up close to see what is happening.

Bill Schaninger
Yeah, in the weeds. You’ve got to be in the mud with them, you know what I mean?

Pete Mockaitis

That’s true. And I think about, hey, I’ve got a team supporting my podcast, and they’re great. Thank you, team. And there are times, we go into it, it’s like, “All right, straight up, there’s a paper shuffle there on minute 8-and-20 seconds in. What are the options do we have available to eliminate that?” And then, sure enough, that sparks some things, like, “Oh, I guess there’s a thousand-dollar piece of software that can make that easier, but when we do it hundreds of thousands of times, that becomes well worth it in terms of the time that we’re saving.” Great.

And so, it’d be quite possible to be completely unaware of that forever, like no one is going to probably mention it, and yet that makes a world of difference. So, I’d love it, Bill, if you could give us an example of, okay, here’s an example of a job, a manager, and a deconstruction, and then a reconstruction, and how that can look, sound, and feel in practice?

Bill Schaninger

Well, just look at someone who, let’s say, produces reports, like classic FP&A, financial performance analysis.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. So, like budgeting and how do we do on the budget.

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, and particularly the end of the month, we’re going to close the month. Say, okay, first one is, “Are we asking people to go out and get 10 different streams of data coming in or can that be hardwired, it just comes in, you don’t need to pull it, it’s pushed in?” That would be one. You can say, “Okay, the format, are we going to go to a consistent format and/or have it setup with a data scientist and transforms you need to get a common format?” That would be two.

“Then the forms and reports that are put out, are we going to have one version or multiple versions? Are we going to allow people to call for a mid-month data?” “No, I’d like mine on the 21st,” “I like mine on the 15th,” “Or will we go to a common model? What about the analyses on variance that we’re going to run on it? Are we going to control for the same factors, control for just the business?” Just basic things like that, all of it which is like, “How often does it happen? To what standard? How many people have to be involved? How much can be automated and made pushed? And how much is it just actually also become a little bit of self-serve?

So, that answers all the reporting questions. And we have that happen time and again, particularly when you’re looking at the effectiveness and efficiency of a finance unit. But what if you were to say, “Well, what about actual analysis? What explains variability across units? What explains variability across customer segments or product groups?” Well, now that’s pretty cool, that’s actual setting out a question, “Why do we make more in one region than another?”

I was doing some really neat work with a burger fast-food joint that that we all know, and they had all these interesting pulls of data, and we’re sitting around with managers and store managers who are going, “Well, we think that GM matters.” “Okay, we have 50 stores here that’s signed up to be guinea pigs, let’s look. Hey, look at that. Actually, after about 18 months, it seems to tail off on the impact. Okay, so what have we learned? We learned that it’s really an important environment to have those managers learning for the first 18 months, two years after that, kind of flat.”

What about hiring? Vacancies are a real problem. Got it. What about hiring part two? Stars, but you know what, you need at least one star in every shift. You don’t load them up for certain shifts and leave other shifts exposed. Length of shift. Actually, we used to think that we were doing people a solid by having them work eight ten-hour shifts so they could avoid the trips in on the bus, but we’re seeing here, anytime somebody works for more than four hours, they start making some mistakes. And after six hours, they make a huge number of mistakes.

Now, why am I belaboring that? That was a group of managers who ran stores, sitting there, and instead of just being, like, protectors of the status quo or guardians of the data that nobody get access to, first, they started with, “How can we routinized and get rid of all the nonsense and bureaucracy around reporting so we could spend our time exploring and understanding variability in performance because who would know it better than us?”

And that, to me, was a big shift, where you get managers, they didn’t have to be data scientists, they didn’t have to be data engineers, but they needed to know enough about the system of production, of performance, of activity, and say, “Well, how could we understand the differences there?”

Pete Mockaitis

You know, Bill, you’re really bringing me some flashbacks here. I’m thinking of that little 25-year-old Pete Mockaitis, senior associate consultant at Bain, and much of our job was, “Let’s just get all the data to finally start making some sense,” as opposed to, “Oh, you can’t trust that because of this, you can’t trust that because of this. Oh, you got to clean it, make it a flat file. Oh, we got to cross reference that, we got to exclude that.” So, it’s like all this stuff, all this stuff.

Bill Schaninger

The storage and the flat file. I remember once saying to someone, “If you just let us run org lab, here’s what you’re going to get. We’re going to tell you exactly the size, shape, and cost of your organization. And the good news is the flat file you get back will be better than the one you gave because we would’ve fixed it.”

Pete Mockaitis

That’s right. And for those not in the know, I’ll just tell you, a flat file is a spreadsheet that has all the columns and all rows and no gaps such that nothing silly breaks when you’re jumping around it, and you can pivot table, etc.

Bill Schaninger

In a world of dismay, it’s like, “Just know that somewhere in that, the nesting and the hierarchy of roles are articulated in columns and/or the cost of the person in that job is articulated in another column.”

Pete Mockaitis

Yes. So, I remember there was all that work, and it wasn’t really fun. I actually made a rap song, “Mo Data, Mo Problems” and performed it. But I remember, for me, it was extremely exciting. My heart started thumping, it’s like, “Okay, finally, we’ve got the pristine real true data, and I’m about to push the button that makes the chart that shows us a thing. Is our hypothesis…?”

Bill Schaninger

Just being able to move to understanding, right, Pete? Listen, if you accept that there’s a little bit of, “We have to clean it,” now think about this because the modern data people are going, “No, Bill, you don’t need to clean it anymore. We can automate all of that,” because then you go from a common poll, common source, so you’re creating a common lake. And then the way in which, whether it’s through an API or something else, there’s just a push. It actually fits.

So, there’s a little bit of work can mean, “We don’t need people doing that manually anymore.” All the people are like, “Oh, I’ve got to run the reports,” which often meant they were doing stupid bridge documents for somebody wouldn’t give up their architecture to something else. All that’s saying is there’s a lot of work we ask people to do, it’s dumb and a pain in the ass. Often, it’s completely untransparent how much it costs and it’s there for the whim for a leader.

Pete Mockaitis

Yes, and then once that’s done, things get really fun and interesting.

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, because then you can actually answer questions, like, “Gee, why do some engineering teams do better than others?” “Well, I don’t know. That one’s trying to go across seven times zones.” That doesn’t work.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah. So, I like that notion in that it’s not just about quantity of work, hours, dollars, but finding what is suitable for a person to do, and what is meaningful, rich, has some purpose, and fits together. And then, all told, is that a full job in terms of…

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, because you may want to add some things that make it a full job. The idea of disaggregating and then reaggregating, it is really like a job architect. And then taking into account the person in front of you, not the FTE, not the widget maker, not the disembodied robot – the person. And so then, you think about second, just in my list but maybe not importance, is know enough about your employee, the person, to know what matters to them, to understand what role work has in their life’s purpose.

Naina Dhingra and I wrote an article a couple of years ago, saying, “Help your employees find purpose—or watch them leave” that did incredibly well in terms of really resonating and people downloading it. But a good portion of it was just you have three circles here on the purpose front. The biggest circle, the outside one, is the person’s life purpose. The middle circle, which will vary in size, is the purpose that vocation serves, and the inside circle, the smallest, is what you, the company, are providing in terms of vocation.

It’s so arrogant for companies to think that they are the entirety of that person’s purpose but this is what COVID did. COVID said to people, “Well, we’re not going to drive two hours to work anymore, or 90 minutes, and we’re not going to all magically turn up by 9:00.” When that was taken out, now you had people at home, particularly moms, let’s just stick with moms for a second. You’re a mom, you’re a teacher, you’re a caregiver, you’re an employee, you’re a partner or a spouse, maybe you’re looking after a sick mom or a sick dad or aunt or uncle, whoever. That role-stacking forced a bit of a reckoning on everyone, to say, “What actually freaking matters to me? What do I really want to do with my life?”

And now it’s no wonder that we continue to have people saying, about on any given time, like 40% are thinking of leaving, many of them have already left one or two jobs, a fair number of them said, “Hey, by the way, I’ll leave even if I don’t have no job on hand.” And then there was always this group that thought that that was going to go away. It’s not going away because we’ve had a reckoning force to say, “Is where I’m spending my time worth it? Because now, actually, I’m seeing at the end of the day, I could be around my kids. I can feed my kids breakfast. I could see them when they come home from school.”

The rise of the nonlinear work day, in many cases, is people recognizing that life matters a lot, a lot, and we have to come to grips with that. Now, who is best to facilitate that? The boss. The manager. People don’t leave companies; they leave bosses. When people are saying, “I don’t feel supported,” it’s because they don’t feel supported by the boss. The environment is crappy because of the boss. “I don’t have flexibility,” usually because of the boss. Not always. Sometimes there are some strange policy stuff going on. Mostly it’s because of the boss.

So, this, to me, is like this is not just kumbaya, or go fix your spans, or, “Oh, gee, woe is me,” you’re being contrarian by saying don’t fire your middle managers. No, we’re saying this is actually essential to creating a healthy organization that people want to be part of and stay at, and it’s no longer a nice to have. You literally cannot get the work done that delivers your plan if you don’t invest in the people who are running the joint.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. So, let’s continue this lead the people. We’ve deconstructed jobs, we figured out what really belongs for a human to do that is a job and then is the right size for a person, so that’s one big chunk of the management.

Bill Schaninger

The purpose part, I think, will be second, you know what I mean.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, yeah, I was going to go there next. So, how does one help people find their purpose?

Bill Schaninger

Well, you’d probably start by asking…

Pete Mockaitis

“So, what’s your purpose, Bill?”

Bill Schaninger

If you say to people, like, we wrote an instrument, which is kind of like a purpose finder, and here’s the interesting thing. In general, the younger you are and the less people that you’re responsible for taking care of the harder time you have in giving specifics about what your purpose is. Now, you might be able to say, “I just need to make a difference in the world.” Okay. Maybe it has to do with healthcare or social justice or education. Okay. “Well, what might that look like if you were doing it?” “Oh, I don’t know, I’m kind of counting on you to help me figure that out. You’re the employer.”

So, there is something here around you can have a nebulous idea that’s incredibly high beta, “I need to believe that the place I’m joining is consistent with having purpose in the world.” That’s pretty high for the youngsters. As employees get a little older or, in particular, have a mouth to feed, whether that’s through a baby, an adoption, someone they care for, whatever, it starts needing to get super specific because time now is not fungible.

Time is, “I’ve got a certain amount of time for my family, a certain amount of time for me, a certain amount of time for work. Now I can start getting incredibly going, yes, it’s not just about healthcare. I’m passionate about making a difference in cold chain for vaccines.” “Okay, got it.” “I’m passionate about making sure that housing is available to students so that they don’t have to be so transient.” “Got it.” So, workers are at different places about their ability to express what their purpose is and the extent to which vocation hits that.

The conduit from the company, which doesn’t have corpus to the boss which does, that’s the big deal. Does the boss understand enough, buy into, or are they a good representation of why the company exists, how it’s going to have impact or make money, and how they’re going to run the place? And can they translate that into what it means for the person in a particular role?

And that’s a skill, that’s a real skill. It also means that the bosses that are disenfranchised don’t feel engaged themselves, feel hard done by, etc. or really, they were just a good individual contributor who really never wanted to be bosses anyway. All those people are real risk points for the organization.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, that’s good stuff.

Bill Schaninger

That makes sense?

Pete Mockaitis

I got you, yeah. And I’m curious, are there any particular practices that you endorse with regard to one-on-ones, check ins, etc.?

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, no, 100%. Look, I think a lot of bosses have been raised, and I think COVID really gave us some real practice in, let’s say, agita about this. At a point at which you saw more and more employees raising their hands, saying, “I’m depressed,” “I’m anxious,” “I’m struggling with alcohol or drug use,” “I’m just really lonely,” some leaders naturally were more about the human condition, “I’m just going to look out after this person. I worry about them because I care about the person.”

Others are like, “Ooh, I can’t talk about that. I’m the boss. HR has told me I shouldn’t ask about mental health.” There was something here saying not playing like you’re a psychiatrist, not offering psychiatric advice, but just caring for one human to a next. I think that came much higher on the list of job one, two, or three.

Show the employee that they matter as a person first, an employee second. If you do that, if the person standing in front of you knows that you care about them, then the question, “Hey, what really matters to you about this? Everybody has choice, everybody decides where they’re going to go to work, what matters to you? What are you trying to get done here?”

For some people, it’s as simple as, “I love my family. I want to be interested in what I’m doing but this is I’m paying bills here. Job one for me is being a provider.” “Got it.” Other people might be, “It’s not just enough to make a check. I need to make a difference in the community I live in. I’m from here, I grew up here,” whatever. You just ask. Ask and prime the pump a little bit, and, more often than not, you will get way more than you can work with.

But once you know it, the mere act of asking gets you credit, and then being thoughtful to work with the person, and say, “You can reframe what we asked you to do, and you could see how that’s really pretty consistent with what matters to you. See if that helps.” It requires time. You know who can’t do that? People who are on the phone and on Zooms 12 hours a day.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s true. That’s true. All right, Bill, so much good stuff. I wanted to also get your take on sort of office politics sorts of things. This is unpleasant for many people in the middle and, yet, it seems that it’s pretty necessary to do well in order to flourish in many environments. How do we think about this?

Bill Schaninger

Oh, it sucks. That’s the technical term. No, listen, politics or the nature of politics exist anytime there’s more than one human doing something. Two people, one is trying to influence the other. Three people, there’s a power dynamic that’s shifting between the three. You get any groups of people, there will be a political environment just by the mere nature of classic psychosocial behavior. So, that’s going to happen.

As soon as you can accept that, “Oh, it should be eradicated,” that’s absurd. That’s not how it works. There’s always influencing, particularly non-power-based influencing. Okay, given that though, what people are really saying is, “I’m trying to figure out how it works around here, and this political stuff is often untransparent. It feels like a black box. I don’t feel like I’m plugged into or someone else is plugged into.”

One way to do it is be really thoughtful about things like, “What are we collectively trying to do? What does that mean for us individually?” Good role clarity goes a long way towards leading this. What am I asking to do? What good looks like? By when? With whom? What can you decide on your own? What do you have to bring back to me? Good, good, good role clarity for any task reduces a lot of the need that people are trying to figure out what the hell is going on, where politics take root. So, a boss that’s really good at role clarity, really good at showing how it fits in with the overall picture, really helpful.

Second, transparency. Don’t force junior people to solve the disputes of more senior people always. If two bosses or two or three more senior people are giving someone trying to do work very different messages, then all you have to teach the junior person to do is send an email or call or have a meeting with the three people, and say, “You have told me A. You’ve told me J. You’ve told me Z. I need some help on figuring out how those things either relate together or which one we’re picking.” Don’t force junior people to solve the disagreements of senior people.

And the last one, transparency, particularly around performance. If you don’t want people guessing, trying to read the tea leaves, don’t force them to read the tea leaves. Check in with them regularly, not in a formal, “Oh, we’re going to fill out a form.” Good coaching. Could you imagine sending your child to piano lessons, and the piano instructor never actually provided any feedback to how your child was playing? Okay, well, that’s the nonsense that people get at work. The boss literally doesn’t tell them how they’re doing, right?

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah. I’m thinking we had Kim Scott, talking about radical candor, and just those notions of it’s not kind to withhold information about how people are performing, and then they get fired and they had no idea. And then we had an employment lawyer who said that for wrongful termination suits, it is always the plaintiffs, those who had been terminated, who introduce the evidence of the performance reviews in the courtroom, or the negotiation. It is never on the other side. It’s sort of like, “Well, according to all these official reports, it says I met expectations every six months, time after time after time.”

Bill Schaninger

Imagine, if you just said to people…Long, long, long ago when I was at the residential psychiatric treatment center, and I had a team, I don’t know, of six, seven, or eight, I would keep little 3×5 cards for each employee, and I would jot things down, pros and cons, then I want to make sure I turn to one each week, we chat, I go, “Hey, that was great, that was great, that was great. This is coming. Can we work on this? How are you doing on X?” whatever.

So, that then when the evaluation was due, a semi-annual, it was a summation and a synthesis with a heavier emphasis on go-forward planning, and no one was surprised ever. The essence of performance management is the management part, it’s the coaching part, it’s the feedback part. So, where politics breed is when the person doesn’t know where they stand, and they’re desperately trying to figure that out and get a hook into something they can trust. You can fight back the influence of a politics just by creating an environment that people can trust where they stand and know how they’re doing.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, that makes sense, that a clear role and it doesn’t mean if someone is doing something it doesn’t mean, “I’ve lost standing,” or, “I’ve gained standing.” It’s like, “No, that’s just what they do, and that’s what I do.”

Bill Schaninger

Exactly right.

Pete Mockaitis

“Okay. And then I know how well I’m doing, and so there we go. No need to worry. I will just keep on trucking.”

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, you got it.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Bill, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Bill Schaninger

I just think maybe one of the most important things to remember always, particularly out of the tech sector but other places, you see these other things, “Oh, no one needs managers. Let’s fire all the managers.” What a load of crap. Give me a break. If you put 15 really well-intended people in a room, but you didn’t let them know what the other 15 people were doing, and you say, “Hey, yeah, we’d like to get from New York to L.A. Go,” you’re not getting the same answers from those 15 people. You’re not.

Why would you think that in an exercise that requires cohesion, collaboration, coordination, maybe some consistency, why would you think that they didn’t need to be led? This idea of, “Oh, people are smart, they’re well-intended,” no. You know who says that? People who really want to be their own boss. Great. Go be a vendor. If you’re going to join an organization, then suborn your own needs to something of a greater good. The greater good has to take primacy. That’s the whole point of joining something. You’re intentionally doing it and that needs to be led or you don’t deliver on it.

So, honestly, I’m pretty aggressive in my rebuke of that because I think that sounds like people who really want the freedom of the gig economy, particularly that we saw in tech, and someone else’s capital to play with, and I don’t think you get both.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Bill Schaninger

Yes, it’s from the song “Freewill,” “If you choose not to decide, you still made a choice.” Geddy Lee, he is a poet. But the idea is so much of work is everyone knows everything, everyone knows who’s struggling, everyone knows who’s a bad boss, everyone knows clients that really aren’t worth serving, and so many people just kick the can down the road. They’ll speak about it in hush tones but they won’t actually raise it.

And I’m not sure about the rhetoric around radical candor but I do think candor, that helps. Calling it like you see it, that helps. So much of our risks and our approaches to risk is counsel the first line of defense, which is people. You know when that’s not working? When no one actually bothers to tell you what’s going on. And the decision to not tell someone is a choice, and I think those things come back and bite us all the time. So, for me, if you choose not to decide, you still made a choice. Holding back information ought to be treated as anything else. It’s still a choice, and it ought to have consequences, I might add.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Bill Schaninger

I was just thinking of the prison experiments the other day, and even in times where they’ve tried to replicate it, and they’ve had varying degrees of success or whatever, people taking on role identity, people assuming role identity, the importance of the cultural contagion, many, many people, they really just want to be part of something bigger. They want to be part of a group. They want to belong. They want to have affinity.

But once they’re in that group, if not managed well, the normative influence of that group, the culture, may take you into places not great. And so, I think, for leaders, the most important thing you can do is help shape, not just by talking about it, but by behaving that way, by reinforcing it, by looking at who you pick to be leaders themselves. What does it mean to be us? What really matters?

And I think there, you can count on the fact that the powerful nature of a group and the need to belong can be an incredible force for good or a force for bad. I would say, when you see things like bullying, septic workplaces, that kind of stuff. It cuts both ways but it can be managed truly for the good. And, again, who best to help manage that but the middle managers, the workplace leaders.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite book?

Bill Schaninger

Well, this one, of course. Obviously, I’m proud of this one. I, for a long time, a lot just because of where I’ve grown up here in Lehigh Valley, that people who worked their whole lives and really invested in a company and wanted just to do a good job of leading people, and leading from the middle, I feel like they’ve been given a short trip. But if you look at things like principals, people who run medical centers, doctors, there are these roles that just matters so much in our daily lives. People who run the DMV center. These are middle managers by definition.

Everywhere we look, if someone who neither makes a strategic choice or is actually doing the work but is critical to a service being delivered, a person being connected to, touched, etc. I really do think it’s the most important thing we can do right now as institutions by acknowledging who gets the joy and the responsibility of leading people. And I think we should take it seriously as such.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Bill Schaninger

This format, podcast, I love it. I’ve been doing it a couple years here at McKinsey quite a bit, and I certainly, in my retired life, I’m pretty sure I’m going to start my own. And I want a format just to be able to go a little bit deeper on some topics. I think one thing that’s really hurt us, I’m about to riff, but one thing I think that really hurt us is the lack of depth to talk about the structure of a problem, the nuance of a problem, the fact that there’s usually multiple facets to it. Very few things in the human condition are simple. Most of the time there’s a couple things going on. I think podcasts really lend themselves to a little bit deeper exploration.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite habit?

Bill Schaninger

I like taking calls in cars. I think, at some point, we spend so much time on Zooms or calls or whatever. Zooms, in particular, not Zoom the product, it’s video conferencing, whatever. It’s a little emotionally taxing, and sometimes, for me, I was a doodler as a kid and so I’ll build Lego now to help focus. Sometimes I just need to get out of the space, get my head out of the space and think differently. And driving while taking calls, I love doing it and I will most certainly continue doing it. I think it actually brings a little bit more of me to the call.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, the two most important questions you can say is, “How are we going to make money? And how are we going to run the place?” And anybody who’s in any kind of positional leadership should be able to answer that on a dime, not in a trite manner, but in the manner that makes it clear to the person in front of them what that means for them.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Bill Schaninger

Bill.Schaninger@gmail.com and Bill Schaninger, PhD on LinkedIn. And then I have a website being setup, and it’ll be up, I don’t know, two, three weeks so I’ll be able to, soon, have a link there on LinkedIn.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Bill Schaninger

Yeah, just remember that if you’ve been given the charge to lead people, it is an awesome responsibility and really, really what a gift to actually be able to influence more than just yourself. Long ago, when I was first given a unit to be responsible for at the residential psychiatric treatment center, the person who hired me walked me out, and said, “Do you see that building up there? It’s yours. All the kids in there, it’s yours. All the employees, yours. Everything that happens there, whether you’re here or not, yours. Do you understand? It’s yours.”

And that so resonated with me, and I wasn’t the seniormost person, not even close. But it was this idea of it only ever works when people really internalize what it’s really about, and their own personal obligation beyond their own success. And then you have a chance of actually doing something special. Otherwise, you’re probably just surviving it.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Bill, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck and fun and power to the middle.

Bill Schaninger

Thank you. Really appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis
Selena, welcome back to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Selena Rezvani
Thank you, Pete, for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to be chatting. I think you’ve got, perhaps, the most perfectly titled book for our audience in memory, Quick Confidence: Be Authentic, Boost Connections, and Make Bold Bets on Yourself. All those sounds great so I think we’ll have a lot of fun here.

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, I am so excited about the book. It’s newly in people’s hands, and soon to be in their ears too as an audiobook.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s great. Did you spend lots of time in the studio?

Selena Rezvani
Six hours and 49 minutes, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s finished audio. But, like, how long were you in there?

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, about three days, three full days, so it was a different kind of lift for sure, that’s some project. Definitely good to have a hot cup of tea after those big days of speaking.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I bet. I bet that is plenty. And, speaking of big lifts, or maybe that’s a terrible segue, I want to know about your mango-eating contest performance.

Selena Rezvani
Oh, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
So, lay it on us.

Selena Rezvani
Yes. So, one of my first trips as an adult, I got to enter a mango-eating contest, and then actually smash it and win. So, it’s really fun. I couldn’t use my hands. Pretty slippery endeavor. But, yeah, they had it at my hotel, and it’s a title. I wish I had like a wrestling belt with that on the front that I have that mango-eating contest winner. Unfortunately, no takeaway from that but just the story.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, leave it to me to invent a takeaway, Selena. I think we’ll find one perhaps. But, first, I got to get clear on the rules. You’re supposed to eat a mango as quickly as possible without any hands?

Selena Rezvani
There were pieces of mangoes without any hands, yup.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s so hard to peel them.

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, that’s right. It’d be hard to do the other way.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And how many competitors were there?

Selena Rezvani
There were three other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, congratulations. Are you a mango fan to this day? Has it shifted your relationship to mangoes?

Selena Rezvani
It is. I love mangoes, always have. So, I think it just only strengthened my love. I make Mango Lassis, actually, with fresh mangoes.

Pete Mockaitis
My favorite part of the mango process is when you slice them very uniquely, and you have those little cubes, and then they all just come off with a spoon, just ready to go.

Selena Rezvani
Yes, it’s like an Instagram moment or something.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, let’s talk about your latest Quick Confidence: Be Authentic, Boost Connections, and Make Bold Bets on Yourself. That all sounds so fantastic. I’d love it if you could kick us off with maybe a particularly striking, startling, counterintuitive discovery that you came up with as you were digging in, putting together, and doing your research for this one?

Selena Rezvani
Well, I think for so many of us, confidence can feel like this elusive trait, like you’re either born with it or you’re not. And, in fact, one of the joys of writing this book was breaking confidence down into three elements that are learnable, that we can practice and all get better at. And those are your mindsets, your beliefs, your body language, how you carrying yourself, and then, of course, your interactions, those interpersonal moments with others.

So, I know, Pete, for so long in my own career, I felt like that very good but second or third choice job candidate. And it wasn’t so much because of my competence as it was my confidence. So, it’s really rewarding and exciting to get to share with people what I’ve learned once I really started to focus on building confidence in my life. It changed my life, and I know most people don’t have a lifetime to learn this. So, lots of quick actionable strategies in Quick Confidence to get better at this.

Pete Mockaitis
So, when you talked about changing your life, I’d love to get a clear sense either if it’s your story or someone else you know who’s a reader or client, just what’s possible and what’s at stake in terms of the upgrade in confidence we can actually get our hands on, and what that can mean for our careers and our lives?

Selena Rezvani
Sure. Well, I think confidence can come in different forms, maybe not all the ways that we picture it as being superhuman or just extra bold. I can think of a time in my own career where I was feeling like every door I opened was the wrong door. I had graduated with a master’s degree in social work, and while I loved the skills I was learning, the problem-solving, the diagnostic skills empowering people, I could not leave this job at work on the weekends.

I was constantly thinking about my clients who were in very hard, difficult situations, and I have the utmost respect for people who can do this work, but it was becoming really clear to me, Pete, I was not suited to do this. And I tried it with different populations groups, lost 10 pounds, like, I was a mess. And I remember in that moment of, honestly, shame and other things, like I just spent all this time learning this, investing in this degree, how could I not be right for this?

Thinking I need to make a bold move here. I need to look outside this domain, and I’m certain there’s ways I can apply these skills to other areas. I wish I could do it in the workplace, to use these same skills there. And I started looking at all different places, I started asking people I knew, connections of connections, really feeling intent on finding an avenue where I could apply this but stay sane and feel it was a sustainable path for me.

And so, one day, I decided I’m looking everywhere, I went on Craigslist. And there, like, “Ahh,” was this amazing job, working at the Great Place to Work Institute, that’s the company that ranks the Fortune 100 best places to work in America list, and they help really crummy workplaces kind of elevate the employee voice, to advocate for employees. And I applied for a job, and I got it. And how wonderful and lucky a break that was for me in terms of finding a home I really loved where I could use those social work skills but in a way that suited me.

And I think it’s not just those shiny exciting moments where confidence comes into play. I think sometimes it’s in our desperate moments where we need to think of a more creative option. We need to do things differently.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, in your journey there, the confidence gap or lack moment is it sound like your low point was, “Uh-oh, I spent all this time investing in the degree and such in doing this career, and it’s not the thing.” And so, in that moment, where you said there’s shame in terms of what does that sound like, if I may, inside your head, like, “I’m no good. I wasted those times”? Like, what are you saying to yourself?

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, that’s such a great question. I think it was statements like, “What were you thinking when you committed to this field? How could you be so off-based in your calculation that this was right for you? How are you going to tell your mom, your siblings, your friends, that this is kind of a fail or feels like one?” So, a lot of those thoughts.

And then, of course, like there’s avoidance in addition to that, which is sometimes we put our heads down and we don’t even entertain, listen to those thoughts. We just say, “Maybe I can power through.” And I did a lot of that, which didn’t work very well but was an attempt.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s fascinating when you started this story where I thought you were going was, “And then you learned how you can…” Because it’s like, “Ooh, Selena, I want that skill, too,” because I love solving problems, cracking cases, but I think I’d be a terrible detective in that I would be thinking about the case nonstop, and it would drive me nuts. If there’s like an open loop, an unsolved problem, I’ll just work away on it constantly.

And, in a way, hey, I’ve come up with some great solutions. And other way, it’s like I just want to enjoy this time away doing something else with other people and being really genuinely present there. And sometimes I fall short if there’s a pressing high-stakes question in it, and the answer is just out of reach, that I can almost make the connections but I can’t.

Or, politics, I think I enjoy trying to win people over, and I enjoy winning, in general, and I think that’d be dangerous for my soul in terms of, like, if I slice things and then just go down a slippery slope of I don’t recognize myself anymore. So, part of the confidence game is just recognizing what are your actual abilities, limitations, and not beat yourself up. Let’s see, okay, well, given that, what would be the most suitable choice for me here?

Selena Rezvani
That’s right. And be willing to try things a different way. We can get really stuck in talking-to-ourselves mode, or, “Why can’t you just power through this?” rather than saying, maybe having that really honest conversation with ourselves, “This isn’t working. This feels like a wrong fit. This feels like something I’m forcing,” and liberating ourselves from that.

I think there’s confidence in liberating yourself from something that’s not working. Then you can start to think creatively and look for solutions and new ideas, but there’s something to be said for that acknowledgement. When there’s a voice grieving inside, we need to do things differently.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And it sounds like it’s a prudent measured wise acknowledgement as opposed to the globalized, “Oh, I’m worthless. I’m no good. I’m a failure. I’m a screw up. I’ll never amount to anything,” etc. like all that head trash. But rather, I don’t remember who said it, like, humility is not an underestimation of your skills, virtues, value, competence, but an honest assessment, “Hey, I’m amazing at this and I’m not so great at this,” and that’s okay.

Selena Rezvani
Yes, and you need to bring those what I call rational counterstatements to the stories you’re telling yourself. Because if you’re telling yourself a really overly negative story, rarely is that totally accurate that it’s all bad. Even my degree is not wasted, it’s not somehow unusable. No. If anything, I’m thrilled I got that degree.

And is this how I pictured using it? No. Not doing coaching and training, but it’s really important we bring that rational counterstatement instead of, “Wow, I really stunk at that presentation.” It’s kind of like, “You know what, I usually do a pretty good job at presentations. I left two or three items out this last time, but I’m going to take that and I’m going to learn from it.” A very different way of self-coaching through the challenges that come up for all of us.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, any other examples of transformations or key benefits that you’ve seen become unlocked for folks when they’re able to upgrade their confidence?

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, I think one I have to share because it relates to this book, and it’s really about dealing with rejections and fails. And at the same time, it’s about listening to some of the spark of your best ideas. The book Quick Confidence actually came from a newsletter I started during the pandemic on confidence with the same name Quick Confidence.

And I talked myself out of writing that, Pete, at least five different times writing this newsletter, thinking, “Is it too fluffy? Does this make business sense?” really second-guessing it. And yet there is a part of me that wanted to share with people this little fortifier of confidence each week. And I wanted, too.

And when I finally launched the thing, it was the first thing in my life that ever went viral. And 100,000 followers and subscribers strong today, and the beauty of it is it really became a forum and an exchange, not just a letter each week but a place where people shared what confidence swings they were taking in their lives. And that’s what, ultimately, led to the book.

But, again, even that process wasn’t like, “Okay, no more doubts, no more closed doors.” There was 12 rejections over a year in terms of the book, and people saying, “Oh, I like that. I don’t know.” So, I think proof that I may be the teacher in some cases, but I’m always the learner, too, and what a humbling thing to go through many fails, rejections, but to really want to trust that spark of your best ideas, and say, “You know what, there’s something here, and I need to go back and ask another time.” And then that’s actually how the book got greenlit was asking a no to consider it one more time.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool and beautiful in terms of what is possible when you are able emotionally to endure many rejections. I wrote a book in college, The Student Leader’s Field Guide, and it didn’t really ever do that well, but I remember I went through that process. This was back in the day with paper, making a one-page query letter to many, many publishers and agents, because that’s what the books told me to do.

And then I had the experience of receiving, literally, dozens of letters back, telling me no, again and again and again. And it felt almost like it was nourishing me or fortifying me in terms of having the experience of going to the mailbox, like, “Oh, I got three letters and they all say no,” like day after day after day.

And, ultimately, I did get one offer but I thought, “You know what, if I just self-publish, it wouldn’t be that different than what you’re bringing to the table.” So, yeah, I learned some things and it is powerful when you’re able to just go after it and not be harmed by rejections over and over again, like, geez, so many things become possible.

Selena Rezvani
Yes. And do you feel like that experience, for you, kind of thickened your skin in a good way for the future?

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. I think it unlocked for me the ability to pursue something when the odds were low, the odds that any one given person will say yes are well below 50%, maybe like 1% or 2% for me. And then I’m able to sort of go in, eyes wide open, with a number of entrepreneurial things, like, “There’s about a 30% chance this thing is actually going to work, and I’m going to go do it.”

And that’s cool, as opposed to, “Okay, I guess, well, I should scrap that and try something better.” It’s like, well, even looking at the data associate venture capitalist and their success rates, most of them don’t work out, and that’s okay to be able to embark on a whole universe of opportunities where the odds are against you, and be okay with it is really cool.

Selena Rezvani
And how many people can say that? That’s not something you hear very often, “I wrote a book in college.” Like, that’s an amazing thing you have to show for that unpredictable kind of rocky road, so kudos to you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. So, let’s dig in. We talked about three things: mindsets/beliefs, body language, and interactions. The book is called Quick Confidence so why don’t we start with what’s the quickest thing we can do to get a confidence boost?

Selena Rezvani
Well, I love sharing this one, and I think you’ll like it, too, Pete. It’s called dog code. And this is something, if you’re feeling a little rusty from the pandemic, an isolation maybe, that can help you with your social confidence, specifically. And so, if you think about when you go to somebody’s house, and there’s a dog there, they don’t sit in the corner and overthink it in terms of coming up to you. They don’t talk it over with a friend first. They simply come right up to you and initiate contact.

And, in a similar way, I think we can get a huge confidence boost when we make that the standard, when we make that a challenge to ourselves, that if I see somebody I’d like to say hello to, I’m going to be the first. I’m going to use dog code. I’m not going to say, “Well, gee, I wish they would come up to me, or maybe later in the party, I’ll see them in the kitchen.” But to make it that practice, that habit to go up to others and be the first. And it’s pretty liberating, it’s pretty amazing what can happen when you sidestep that overthinking process, and make this a habit in your life. You’re suddenly doing it automatically.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that notion a lot. Sidestepping the overthinking. The dog doesn’t think, it just goes. And so, likewise, I’m trying to put myself in that situation and think of the thoughts I’m having, it’s sort of like, “Oh, this is sort of like an awkward angle, or, I don’t know, he seems like he’s doing something. He’s already talking to someone else.”

There’s any number of thoughts, and it’s sort of hard to introduce yourself terribly in terms of, like, “If I wait for the perfect moment that’s somehow going to improve.” Other than flagrantly interrupting them or someone else, “Hi, I’m Pete,” probably I’m going to be fine. Just almost no matter what you do within normal reasonable behaviors.

Selena Rezvani
I agree with you. And I think some people will get ahead and say to me, “Yeah, but what happens after that once I get there?” And I think it’s an okay goal to break the seal, to warmly say hello, and let the connection be what it is. I don’t think it’s necessarily on you as the initiator to have to carry the entire thing. But I think it can do a lot, and people will remember you when you are the first.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Sometimes when I’m in those situations, I like to be on the prowl for folks who are, they’re not really in the groove yet, like they’re off to the side, they’re looking at their phone, they’re sort of staring off in space, and it’s sort of like this is primetime. Because if someone is in a social environment and they’re on their phone, unless they look like totally riveted, or they’re speaking on their phone, that usually means they’re open for business, they’re ready to be chatting and would probably prefer to be speaking to you than looking at Instagram or whatever they’re up to there.

Selena Rezvani
And what an inclusive way to approach it, noticing maybe who is feeling a little bit on the rim or doesn’t have a conversation partner. I think that’s a really great way to use dog code and put it in action.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, we got three bits: mindsets/beliefs, body language, interactions. Can we talk through each of them?

Selena Rezvani
Yes. So, we just touched a little bit on interaction with dog code, but another one that I’m asked about a lot in confidence or executive presence trainings is around dealing with intimidating people and finding the confidence to manage that. And so, one of the mindset shifts I like to ask people to make is to really make a point to interact with the person not the power.

So, not Jenny, the CMO of a Fortune 50 company, but Jenny, the flesh and blood human who is probably potentially a sister, a friend, a student from college that somebody knows, and to really approach that person more peer-to-peer, reminding yourself that you can be respectful of them and maybe their power, their title, their status, without playing small yourself. And I think that’s an important distinction to make.

You can even try this exercise I do sometimes I’ve certainly done, called just like me. And you think specifically about ways this person is just like you, even if they seem like the Queen of Sheba to you, and you feel like you have nothing in common. You might say to yourself, “This person has felt discouraged just like me,” or, “This person has wanted to make a good first impression just like me,” or has been full of hope for a particular dream just like me, wish they could have 20 more minutes in bed this morning, just like me.

And so, we’re not stuck in this power differential that can often like seep our powers. We play into that. If we kind of say, like, “Oh, Pete, I know you’re so busy so let me just hurry up and speak to you really fast and get my words out as quickly as possible.” Or, if I over-thank you constantly, “Thank you for meeting with me today,” and then at the end, “Thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule.” Sometimes we do these things, these fawning actions that actually seep our power. And so, it’s not needed even if you’re dealing with the most intimidating figure. Treat them with respect but don’t shrink yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. I remember the first time, I was in consulting, and a real-life CEO was going to be in a meeting and I was going to be there, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve read about these mythical creature CEOs, and there’s going to be one.” I don’t know if I thought he would glow or something, but when we were actually there in the meeting, he just asked very normal questions that any normal person might ask during a meeting, like, “Oh, does that number include the benefits or just the salaries?” And I was like, “That’s what I would want to know. Wow!”

Selena Rezvani
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, they’re normal people, and, just like me, it’s a great point. What’s the expression, “Oh, they put the pants on one leg at a time.” I was like, “Okay, that’s true.” But, more personally, or to the point, they have many experiences of just common humanity that we all have. They get hungry. They get thirsty. They have to go to the bathroom. They get bored. They want to be sleeping some more. Sure.

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And what’s helped me stop doing some of that fawning and overthinking and shrinking myself is even realizing it may be sending the wrong message. It may be telling them, like, in fact, you did do something extraordinary when that may not be the true. We’re just collaborating. We’re both here because we’re trying to get our work done today and get a certain outcome. So, it’s a freeing notion to realize you can bring that egalitarian mindset and preserve your own confidence.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s talk a little bit more about mindsets and beliefs. I supposed you mentioned social confidence as one, some category of confidence. And I’m curious, are there any mindsets or beliefs that are globally super useful in giving a confidence upgrade that you’ve found?

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, I think one in particular is affirming yourself with specific mantras that really speak to your insecurities. So, I don’t recommend necessarily using general platitudes. I don’t find they work for me, saying, “I am peace,” or something. If it works for somebody else, that’s fantastic. But I think what is more powerful is to really consider your specific insecurities.

If maybe you’re in a job interview and you’re questioning your place there, you’re feeling uncomfortable, “This bigshot environment, I’m not sure I belong.” You might say things to yourself, like, “I earned my place here,” or, “I belong here. I 400% belong here.” Sometimes people will tell me it’s not the anticipated path that makes them nervous; it’s making mistakes.

So, if making a mistake was your concern, saying the wrong thing, you might tell yourself something like, “If I take a wrong turn, I word something oddly in the interview, I can right myself.” Just like a cat has righting reflexes, we can do the same. We can land on our feet. We can restate our message in a more eloquent way. And so, I think there’s wonderful things we can do to reassure ourselves that are more pointed and meaningful than anyone else’s outside validation.

Pete Mockaitis
That is so powerful. And I’m reminded of that, when you said about self-correcting, we interviewed Amy Edmondson, and she endorsed your book as well, so I think she’s fantastic. I just thought this was amazing, she said about having a cheerful recognition that you’re a fallible human being in a fast-paced uncertain ambiguous world.

And, for me, that was huge in terms of reducing some pressure. I guess I just self-impose pressure to get it right, to well-perform, to nail it, crush it, win, and all sorts of things, like, “And if I don’t, then I’m bad or I screwed up.” It’s that notion, like, that’s just the reality for all of us here. And, thus, the implication is, “Well, of course, we are naturally going to make some mistakes some of the time, and that is normal and to be expected of all of us.” And so, that reduces a lot of the pressure, the intensity, that which could shake my confidence.

Selena Rezvani
Yes. And what a living legend Amy Edmondson is, and her contributions are just amazing. And I think that’s a beautiful quote. I’m not surprised that stays with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, talk to us a little bit about body language now.

Selena Rezvani
Sure. So, I think we’ve all had situations where we felt less than confident. Let’s say, in a networking situation, for example, I can remember one in my own life where I was so excited to go there. It was many leaders I admired. And for whatever reason, at this event, I just couldn’t break into those little circles of people who are already formed.

I remember kind of inserting myself in one duo, saying hello, and I remember them saying, “Do you mind if we just go back to talking to each other?” And, ugh, it was such a strange and uncomfortable situation. And maybe we’ve all been there in some way or some form. In moments like that, it’s very easy to want to shrink our body language, to maybe go inhabit the corner of the room, maybe make kind of furtive eye contact, low talk if we are going to engage with anybody, and make ourselves small.

And I really encourage people to do the opposite in moments like this, even if it feels a little counterintuitive to do, to kind of big-up your body language, to be conspicuous, celebrate what your mama gave you. And you can do that kind of even thinking from floor to ceiling. You can stand with your feet just a little more than shoulder width apart. I call this surfer stance. And you’re really claiming your full bubble of space when you do this.

And you want to make a point to stand tall. You want to try to brush the ceiling with the top of your head, to really stand tall. And you want to be able to gesture freely. Often, when we’re feeling uncomfortable and nervous, we stand with our arms kind of glued to our ribcage, we don’t motion, and yet gesturing is something that helps us be seen as more engaging and warmer.

So, I think a lot of these send a powerful message to ourselves that, in fact, we do belong and we’re not going to shrink from this situation even if we don’t get some of those cues, some of that validation we’d like.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. That’s good. This sounds a little bit like the power posing of Amy Cuddy, and I’ve dug into that research, and I understand there are some controversies but much of it was successfully replicated and in terms of self-reports, but the cortisol find was sometimes harder to replicate. But it sounds like what you found is, sure enough, this idea of expansive body postures gets it done.

Selena Rezvani
It gets it done. And if you’re even a remote worker who finds you’re sitting a lot of the time, you can even apply it to that situation. Maybe you are interviewing for a job seated, or maybe you’re in a Zoom situation, making a big pitch or proposal. Making a point not to sit tentatively at the edge of your chair, which can make you look uncertain or like you’re about to bolt out of the room, but to really make a point to envelope your full chair, to push your back all the way to the back cushion, to use the armrest, to really spread out. It makes you feel different. That’s what’s neat.

Pete Mockaitis
What this brings to mind, for me, is Star Trek in terms of like when the captain sits down on the chair, it’s the captain’s chair, and he or she owns that entirety of the chair. And it’s interesting how you would think of a seated position can seem more passive or less in command, and yet we’ve got many series and many episodes of people demonstrating exactly how you sit in a chair like a boss.

Selena Rezvani
That’s right. That’s right. Because many of us have probably done it the other way where you are kind of like folded up very neatly in the center of the chair, like taking up as little space as possible. Not exactly empowering. I don’t think that really summons your boldness, your best ideas. Very different when you claim your space.

Pete Mockaitis
And you can just yell, “Damage report” to the things going on in the meeting, it’s like, “Well, this guy is in charge and a little out there.”

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, it worked on Star Trek, why can’t it work here?

Pete Mockaitis
All right, Selena. Well, tell us, do you have any more quick tips, tactics, that are just swell we should know about before we hear about your favorite things?

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, I think one more important one for all of us to know is the most confident people, they keep the promises they make to themselves. And it means something when we make a promise or a commitment and we follow through on it. And, boy, does it build our sense of confidence and esteem, and our ability to say, “I can do this again in the future.”

So, realize, if you’re somebody who makes promises to yourself, and you break them, this could be hurting your confidence, this could be getting in the way of you having lasting confidence that you can tap at any time. And some of the ways I recommend people handle that is to shrink some of the commitments, so the promises they make to themselves so that they’re more doable and manageable.

And, by the way, you get to feel the feel-good feelings of achieving a goal when you shrink the size of it. Or, to just do it less often, to not do the, “I’m going to start the diet on Monday,” or, “I’m going to try to work out at 4:00 p.m.,” but to think about doing that less often. Because if you continue to do it, you kind of start to see yourself like that flaky coworker that you can’t rely on, who usually doesn’t follow through on what they say.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Selena Rezvani
One of my favorite quotes is, “First you seem powerful in your eyes, then you seem powerful in other people’s eyes.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Selena Rezvani
Yeah, one of the pieces of research I’ve been sharing a lot lately has to do with the crisis of confidence, particularly for younger people. Over half of young people agree that they’ve lost self-confidence as a result of the pandemic, and that’s even worse for individuals for lower income backgrounds. So, I think social isolation, job uncertainty, safety risks, health risks, it’s done a number for a lot of us on our ability to feel successful and confident. And I think, as important as it is to build our own self-confidence, we can also make a point to extend this to other people, to give others little micro validations that help them feel capable.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Selena Rezvani
I just finished reading a book called One Bold Move a Day by Shanna Hocking, and I really enjoyed it.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Selena Rezvani
Actually, it’s an anti-tool and I hope that’s okay.

Pete Mockaitis
Please.

Selena Rezvani
But it’s been running without any tool. I’m such a multitasker that normally I like to listen to something at the same time. But you know what, I found resisting that urge and letting myself just have the open canvas. The thinking time has been not only rejuvenating but led to some of my best ideas.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Selena Rezvani
I wake up 10 minutes before the rest of my family, and I have coffee by myself in peace before dogs, cats, my twin children, my husband get up. And that little period of solitude, with my warm cup of coffee while the birds chirp, is everything.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I’m curious, how do you wake up 10 minutes before your husband? If there’s an alarm, would that not wake up both of you?

Selena Rezvani
Good point. He has a way of managing through. Actually, he knows it’s a habit. We’ve got our lockstep system down by now.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Selena Rezvani
I think what I’d say is confidence doesn’t have to be loud. Let’s reframe confidence not as being effortlessly cool or perfect or completely self-reliant, but as somebody who’s not afraid to ask for help, somebody who has a learning growth mindset, somebody who gives confidence to other people.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Selena Rezvani
Well, I create new content daily for LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram so I hope you’ll check those out, and my book Quick Confidence.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Selena Rezvani
Yes. And that is if any of you kind of suffer with the overthinking that we’ve been talking about as a thread in this conversation, one thing you can try is to ask your body to do what your mind won’t. So, to simplify that task in front of you that you may be overthinking, you might say something like, “Hands, I want you to type up the application and hit Submit.” Or, at an event, maybe you’re hesitating, you might say, “All right, legs, walk over to John and introduce yourself now.” And it’s, again, a way to sidestep some of that overthinking that can be so empowering.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I like that so much. And what it does further is a lot of times I think I’ll feel resistant, like, “Oh, it just seems too hard or too much for me right now.” It’s like, well, we’d really segment it to, like, “This one specific body part is doing one specific thing that doesn’t require any mental intervention whatsoever.” It just seems a little bit more doable, like, “Okay, my legs are going to be doing that. So, all right.”

Selena Rezvani
Exactly. Right. Right. Your body is there, kind of waiting to be a faithful service. Why not use it, especially when your brains may be getting in the way?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Selena, thank you. This has been a lot of fun. I wish you much luck and confidence.

Selena Rezvani
Thank you so much, Pete.