Relationships Archives - Page 2 of 61 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Ashley, welcome.

Ashley Herd
Thank you, Pete. I love listening to your podcast, so it’s a treat to be on here.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. You, too. It’s funny, I had to check. Wait, we haven’t met in person before, have we, right? No, I don’t think we have. Okay, well.

Ashley Herd
No, no, although it feels like it.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. All right. Well, I’m stoked to be talking about managers and methods therein. You said something intriguing, and I had heard that, “Oh, many managers don’t receive any training.” You went ahead and quantified that, depending on what segment we’re talking about. It’s a whopping 40-60% of managers have had no training whatsoever. Can you talk to us about this concept?

Ashley Herd
Well, what often happens, I’ve seen, is this idea of when managers are selected. And I say that intentionally because often it is this selection process that, when you get picked or told you’re going to become a manager or interview to become a manager, there’s this idea of, you know, “This person is great at their job, so we’ll take them. We’ll make them a manager. They’ll teach everybody else how to do it and magic. It’s awesome.”

And despite the fact that most people making that decision are actually managers, people-leaders themselves, that know the realities of doing a job and leading a team are very different, you just kind of forget that it’s a very different skill set.

And so people are put into this position, really focusing on the work without ever giving that consideration or actual training on how to do it with this idea of like, “Oh, they’ll figure it out as they went along.” Sometimes that’s what people did and it works out for you.

Sometimes leaders think that it’s worked out for them, but it has not, actually, and data shows that it does not tend to work out to just magically learn leadership.

Pete Mockaitis
So you just mentioned data, one my favorite words. What are the indicators? What are the numbers telling us about things not working out so much here?

Ashley Herd
Well, you can look at things the boards of directors and leadership levels are going to be looking at of retention, engagement, so people are going or staying. Engagement, sometimes that can be a little trickier to monitor. You often may have employee engagement surveys.

I, personally, now that I do manager training, frequently people come to me and say, “We did an employee engagement survey. It shows that we need manager training.” And the answer to that, “It’s okay.” Well, what does that say? Because generally it’s not going to be quite specific as our managers need training. It’s a lot of run on comments sections about the realities of what it’s like to have a manager or what they’re doing.

But then sometimes with manager training, I say, “Okay, well then employees, managers get training, but then employees want it themselves.” So I do think the reality is people are looking for tips on how to work. And so when you do look at factors like retention, engagement, performance, there’s great quantifiable data.

I personally have no affiliation, but I love Harvard Business Review, HBR.org. It’s great because the things that may seem very common sense to you and I, Pete, and those listening, that if you don’t train managers, you’re probably going to see negative effects from them.

HBR has done a really nice job of having examples of what that looks like. But all of those check-the-boxes that are ticked, that boards of directors and others care about, those do really, really trickle down to the idea of, “My manager isn’t the type of manager I want to work for. I’m either not going to care about my job or I’m going to go find a job where they do.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, engagement numbers aren’t great, retention numbers aren’t great. Is there anything dastardly or shocking that you’ve uncovered about the state of manager effectiveness in the workplace nowadays?

Ashley Herd
Well, one thing that I’ve really been interested in seeing, including in the world of AI and whether you’re managing people or AI agents, and they are not one and the same, the thing, but some of the data has really continued. Like, I actually, before, like I was a lawyer, but before I even went to law school, I worked for a company called Corporate Executive Board. They were acquired by Gartner.

And they partnered with Gallup to do research on employee engagement. And I, like a lot of people, including maybe like a lot of people listening, didn’t really understand, one, what that means or what goes into it other than pay me more.

And I do very scientific studies all the time on social media when I post videos, and I see comments that say, “It’s simple. Pay people.” I say, “Okay, but I’ve had some of the higher-paying jobs that I’ve had, I actually would trade that and have actually in my life traded for a lower salary to have a quality of life and autonomy and a manager.”

There are other things that go into your experience. And the data that stood behind that, that Gallup had done on employee engagement, that we did with the company I mentioned that’s now Gartner, is the number one driver of employee engagement, meaning how much you care about your job and the work you put into it, it isn’t pay.

Like, pay will keep you in seat or not often, but it’s whether your direct manager helps you understand if you’re good at your job, how that impacts the organization’s goals. Like, really the human equivalent of, “Do I matter?”

And that research has been redone sometimes identically, but sometimes in other ways, and that still continues. I mean, that’s over 20 years later since that was originally done. And so I think one aspect is how continuous this idea of people really wanting to feel like they matter as a human at work, that that stood still, including as technology has evolved.

Pete Mockaitis
To feel like they matter. Yes, and I’ve seen a number of studies which say, you know, “Appreciation is the top thing.” And that’s in that zone of feeling like we matter. And what are the top drivers that contribute to feeling like you matter or don’t matter in so far as stuff your manager is doing or not doing?

Ashley Herd
Well, I’d say Gallup, and, again, like while there’s no affiliation, there are some organizations I really like and trust the research, and Gallup continuously is one of them. And so they’d have this idea of, “Okay, let’s look at regrettable attrition.”

What that means is it’s like the people that they leave, and the manager says like, “Oh, shoot. I really wish they hadn’t left.” Gallup did a whole study around that of like, “Okay, let’s take out times when someone is not a fit for the job or times when the employer is making the decision, lay off, things like that.”

“But when people quit and the manager or organization wishes they hadn’t, what would have changed their mind?” And they went through the factors on this. And it was incredible because, as I mentioned, compensation can keep people in seat. And about a third was compensation, “Compensation would have kept me here.” But also about equal to that, about a third was two things.

One, if they had more positive interactions with their manager, and, two, if they’d had less negative interactions with their manager. And so what that can look like isn’t some, you know, big question of, “Did my manager put me up for this promotion? Did they give me this strategic guidance?”

Sometimes it’s literally thinking about that of, “Okay, I have a manager. We’re in person. I’m sitting in my cube, and I sit there every day and watch my manager stop by this person across from me, and never stops by me. Like, I just literally feel like I don’t matter.”

Or, on the flip side, “Okay, I have a manager that they have a kid that’s in Little League. Okay, their team.” Sometimes team members will say, “I know more about my boss’s kid’s batting average than I know of my own. I can’t go to a single one of my games while my boss is somehow leading this team and coaching their team because they can take the time off, but I’m not allowed to.”

And so that type of environment versus, “Okay, my manager has a kid that’s in Little League. I don’t have children. I don’t really have nothing to relate to them on. But if I have a manager that says, ‘Oh, but I’m personally into fly fishing,’” meaning me, the team member, “That has nothing to do with my manager, but they stop and ask me about that…?”

Conversations like that and moments like that, I mean, those don’t pay the bills. But when you’re coming down to your decision of, “Do I apply for another job? Do I want to stay here?” When you have a workplace that you show up to and you do feel like you have those interactions, that can truly influence people choosing to stay even when they have opportunities elsewhere.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I love it. And it’s funny that that comes up in terms of it seems so simple, yeah, more positive experiences and fewer negative experiences, like, “All right, let’s turn that into a tremendous prize for a research insight.”

Ashley Herd
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
But, nonetheless, it’s not a super common practice, apparently, as is showing in the data associated with people’s experience of their engagement and their retention. I’d love it if you’re familiar with any of the super simple behaviors – you just mentioned one, you ask about their life and the things that they’re interested in – super simple behaviors that are pervasively neglected would just make a world of difference for folks.

Ashley Herd
I’ll give you three because, from my time at McKinsey, I learned the power of three, and so I say sometimes I’ll give you four to go above and beyond, but we’ll stick with three, the magic number.

One is if you’re hiring somebody, so let’s say you’re a manager and you’re hiring somebody on your team. Great. They go through, maybe you call and let them know, “Hey, you’re going to get the offer. You’re going to hear from HR on the paperwork. Congratulations!” And, in a way, you almost treat it like a lottery prize, like, “Congratulations! You’re on our team. HR does the paperwork. They take care of things.” And so the next you see them is on their first day, virtually or in person.

But there’s a step that can often be missed. If you’re a manager, have you ever had a conversation with a new hire and told them why they got the job? Or, on the flip side, if you’re listening to this and you’re not a manager, how often have you gotten a new job and the person that’s going to be your boss tells you, “Hey, this is why you stood out in the hiring process, and this is why we’re uniquely excited to have you join our team”?

It doesn’t cost anything. It doesn’t really take much time. But that kind of conversation helps tremendously with things like engagement, because you’re starting and you feel like you matter, that it really is that two-way street. And so that’s something I often recommend, especially as a hiring manager, because I’ve been in legal and HR.

Those are not two of the most popular departments in any organizations. HR is more popular when you’re giving people new hire paperwork, but to keep present and tell people that really sets it up as a two-way street. And so I say that’s neglected just because it doesn’t, most managers don’t pause to think about how impactful that can be.

The other, I’ll say, is during employment. So let’s say delegation. You listen to all sorts of podcasts, of course, including Pete’s here, and you hear, “Okay, I should delegate. Give opportunities to my team member. It’s going to help them grow. It’s going to help me not feel like I do everything.”

But one thing that happens is you have a conversation and you tell your team member what they’re going to do and you feel great about it. But that team member, they hear it and they’re not so excited. They think to themselves, “Okay, well, now my boss is just trying to pawn work off on me, and I already have a full plate. So I guess I’ll just have to work more hours to figure this out.”

And so what’s neglected is having a conversation to, again, one is get their interest in working on this, “Sometimes you’re going to be able to work on things you’re interested in, sometimes you’re not,” but also explaining why you picked this person out for this opportunity and how it connects to actual development opportunities.

But then also to have the conversation of, “I don’t want to assume. I think I have a pretty good idea of what’s on your plate, but I don’t want to make assumptions. Let’s talk about this and how it can fit in with other things. And if there’s anything that can and should move off your plate to work on this.”

Again, that’s something that’s often neglected, it’s that step of between telling you what you’re going to do and how it gets done. The last thing I’ll say, and then I’ll flip back is, sometimes what gets neglected is when people quit. So we’ll go back to that regrettable attrition.

I’m meeting with Pete. Pete sets up time with me. I kind of have a sense of what’s coming because Pete is on my team and he tells me, “Hey, I need a quick minute.” Pete tells me, “I’m sorry. I’m leaving to go to another company.” I’m pissed because I take it very personally, because I see all the time on the internet. I’m like, “People don’t leave people. Pete is leaving me. This is super personal.”

Well, sometimes that happens. Sometimes Pete wants and needs to make more money. Sometimes Pete is moving. All sorts of other reasons aside from just the manager. But what gets neglected is pausing by managers to think about how it matters of, “How I talk to you, Pete, in that situation and understanding that you may have been incredibly stressed before telling me that and felt super guilty.”

But people make professional decisions all the time. And as a manager, projecting calm and not taking it, you know, back personally or getting frustrated back at Pete, and also then how I talk about you, Pete, to the rest of the team.

So sometimes what happens is managers bash and say, “You know, Pete is leaving us, so we’ll figure it all out.” But in those three moments, each of those is often just a pause to think about sometimes what you can do or how you can react that make such a difference in leadership beyond those moments.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And that seems to be just a theme throughout is pretty much like and you’re going to share with us a framework. But you are, you just have a pause and think about the other, the human being in front of you, and where they’re coming from, and what they’re thinking about, and how they’re feeling, and then providing a little something-something, in terms of, “Hey, here’s why we picked you. Here’s why I think you’d be great at this.”

Or, “Hey, well, it’s going to be a bummer to see you go and we’d love to hear some more about what might’ve caused you to stay,” or whatever, you know, in terms of, in some ways, it doesn’t seem that hard, and yet it’s often not done. Why do you suppose that is?

Ashley Herd
Probably, some of the biggest doubts I’ve had about what I do is, like, “Am I going to write my book?” or, “When I put things out, is it just common sense?” But common sense really isn’t that common. And why I think it happens, and why a lot of research does back it up is that people do just get busy.

And some of it’s research, some of it’s just common sense, is we all have intentions about what we’re going to do and say. I mean, look at it. If you made a to do list this morning, Pete, hopefully it was have a fun podcast conversation with Ashley.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right, it is.

Ashley Herd
And anything else, I mean, we do this all the time though. We make these to-do lists for ourselves. Sometimes, morning me has this idea of, afternoon or evening me, and it’s two different people. I have no idea what I thought was going to happen, but the reality is we get busy and you’re just trying to get through things.

And no matter what your role or title is, how many years you have experience at work, you get busy. And so you do not pause. I mean, that just happens. And so you’re just reacting in the moment, and you’re trying to get through things, and you’re making assumptions just like you wouldn’t want someone on the other side to do but you’re doing that yourself. And I really do think a lot of it is because we just get busy and we don’t think about it.

Pete Mockaitis
That makes sense. Well, I want to dig into your framework, but maybe we could just zoom out. Tell us, The Manager Method, your book, what’s sort of the big picture message here?

Ashley Herd
So the big picture is to meet managers where they are. So whether you are a brand new or aspiring manager, or an experienced senior executive, I have found that people in leadership have so much in common. And so I’ve taken from my experiences working at, including in the corporate departments, from KFC to McKinsey, and seeing that often managers don’t take time to pause.

And so what this is, is a framework that you can use in any situation as a people leader, and then all sorts of examples of how to bring it to life, whether you’re hiring, or whether you’re delegating, or whether it comes to taking time off for yourself and as well as your team. And so all of those different aspects of work. So it’s designed to be, hopefully, an easy read, but also one that sticks with you, that helps people actually lead better.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And could you share with us a story of someone who dug into some of these principles and saw a cool transformation?

Ashley Herd
So one is, and I think I actually saw this, this is somewhat spurred it on, but I once had a boss, a future boss that was going to interview me. As I mentioned, I’ve taken a pay cut once in my life from higher pay to lower for quality of life. That happened when I was a lawyer. I moved from law firm to in-house counsel.

And I was interviewing with a client, which has all sorts of aspects to it. It was a general counsel of a publicly traded company. At the time, I had a toddler. I worked 24/7. I traveled all over the country on employment litigation cases with the law firm. All I did was work. I didn’t really like the person I was, honestly, for myself or my family.

But this client I interviewed, and I had all these questions in my head because you hear like it’s kind of being a consultant, going to industry, like, “Oh, is it better? Hope it is.” But this general counsel, who was a man, had two teenage sons, but also stay-at-home wife and a nanny, had no idea or no reason to understand fully what I was going through.

But he said, proactively, “I want to be clear that moving in-house, in this role in particular, is a pay cut, about 20-25% pay cut,” which is true. But he said, “Part of your compensation package is a more predictable schedule. You will work eight to five, you will not be expected to work out of those hours. We have a lot of fun. We take our jobs seriously, but we do really enjoy each other.”

And these are conversations, I don’t know if any lawyer has ever heard in a job interview, certainly not proactively from a general counsel or senior leader since, but I saw this, in proactively having that. So what that did for me was communicate information about what I was going to be paid very transparently, but also for me, I was willing to take that for transforming what my life was like.

And so I’ve taken that, and now had conversations with managers, and included in the book, about things to proactively tell candidates when hiring. And I’ve had so many managers that have said, you know, things like, “What kind of decisions can you make? What are the actual hours that you have? What are the things that may drive candidates away because they’re so bad? And then can you rethink those so you’re not having people quit and you’re constantly doing the turning wheel of hiring?”

But I’ve had so many managers that say, “You know, there’s things about this,” or, “If I had a candidate that brought up to me work-life balance, I wrote them off. Maybe in the moment I didn’t, but I thought it was that showed me that’s what they care about. And I need someone that’s going to focus on work. We can figure out the work-life balance.”

But it’s when I thought about it and understood, “Okay, but it’s not a game. And it’s important to me to have people that start and understand the realities of the world, for better or for worse, in proactively providing that. Because people often aren’t going to ask that question, because for that exact same reason.”

And so that’s what I’ve heard is the feedback of whether it’s things from interviewing or otherwise, how helpful it can be for managers to have those conversations, but ultimately, how you can bring people on that are a fit for the realities of what your role is. And doing that can help everyone’s lives be a lot more effective at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I think that’s great. And I’ve had that experience and when I’m hiring people, and I’ll say, “Hey, here’s my personal opinion of why I think this role is really cool. And here’s my personal opinion of how this role, in some ways, will really suck. And you know you the best in terms of if that seems like appealing and a fit or like a, ‘Uh-oh, maybe we should just stop talking right now.”

And I think that that’s great for everybody, in terms of there’s no surprises, because that’s super costly, it’s like, “Oh, shoot, I thought this was that, but apparently it’s something completely different.”

Ashley Herd
Yeah. I mean, you see the cost of hiring and you can see the ranges from 50 to 200% of salary, again, depending on whether someone started their role, all of those things. But we know it is expensive by money. It’s expensive at time.

And then there’s the whole morale of you have someone that starts on Monday, and by Wednesday they’ve ghosted you and they are not coming back to work, and what that means to the rest of the team. And that just creates a lot of grumbles. But I love that you do that, Pete. What are the reactions that you get when you say things like that? Or, like what are the aspects of roles that may suck or not suck?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, terms of it’s like, “Hey, you know, this is kind of repetitive. I mean, we’re going to be doing another episode, then another episode, then another episode, then another episode. And you might have perhaps eight key things that you’re trying to accomplish with them again and again and again and again.

And so that might feel great, like, “Oh, I can get into the groove. I can master this craft.” Or, it might feel not great, “Oh, I’m bored out of my mind.” And so, hopefully, the variety of the topics and exchanges will be of interest and supporting.

And so I think, as I’m recalling those times, it’s just like, “Oh, good. Understood.” I think it’s just a little bit – relief might be a strong word – but it creates a little bit more calm and peace on a couple of fronts. One is like, “Okay, I could see what I’m getting into,” as well as, “Oh, okay, this person I’m talking to is real in terms of it’s not all rosy, okay? And that’s to be understood and expected.”

And then I think it creates a bit more freedom in the conversation to express what’s really on everyone’s mind, because we don’t have to kind of play a game in which these are…And I’ve seen YouTube videos on this, like, when the interviewer asks this, “This is really what they want. And so what you’re thinking is this, but you don’t really say that.” I mean, just this whole layer of obfuscation, it’s like, “Oh, we can let go of some of that. That’s nice.”

Ashley Herd
It is. And it sounds like common sense because you think, like, “Okay, well, this is work and I’m the leader. If people don’t like that, then they should look elsewhere.” And they can, but you’ll also tend to have consequences of that.

If you create, whether it’s a hiring process or a workplace, that your attitude is people can go work elsewhere, then probably the people that you want to work with you will be looking elsewhere sooner rather than later. And you and I both, if people wanted to work on our teams, that they have a lot of data they could look at.

Namely, they can listen to and watch your podcast, have and say, “Okay, I wonder what Pete is like in real life.” But you get a glimpse into what someone is like. Oftentimes, someone is interviewing and, aside from your LinkedIn, maybe it’s a profile picture from 20 years ago or all those things, but people are, they are, they’re just trying to find out the realities just like you are of them.

And I’ve just seen so many managers that they forget, not that they don’t care, you’re just not thinking about the fact of this is a real human on the other side. And so if we have 10 rounds of interviews, that can mean 10 times of them trying to figure out how to lie to their boss about exactly where they are at that moment. And so we may be making this process a lot harder than it should be.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And that’s a great point, it’s like, for most, the vast majority of humans have a very tiny public profiles, like, “Okay, you got a LinkedIn profile, but you haven’t posted anything for years, and maybe you haven’t updated some of the positions either. So I don’t know if you’re the guy who just screams, ‘You can’t deposit excuses, you know, every week’ or what you’re like at all.”

Ashley Herd
Yeah, and so they may look, it’s like, but I hear all the time, like, Glassdoor, and HR leaders will say, “Oh, you can’t trust Glassdoor.” And I say, “Well, sure, I know. I know from very real experience.” Sometimes you look at a Glassdoor of you, and you think to yourself, “I know who that person is.” And there’s some more context to that that could probably even it out a bit.

But when you do see themes like that, or if you’re a manager that has a reputation that people have identified you by name or by function, that’s what people are building their information on. And so knowing that the candidates you’re talking to, these are real humans with real lives. And those are people that, ideally, you want to have come join your team and want to be there and grow, and so providing as real of information as you can.

I totally love the way you put it. I think the value of having peace and calm and just feeling this is somebody you can have a communication with and trust what they’re saying, that is such an underrated skill in management, meaning underrated by managers thinking about how important that is for them to establish.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s hear about your pause, act, consider framework. Walk us through it.

Ashley Herd
Okay. So, again, three steps, all revolutionary. And I’ve mentioned the pause a bit. And this is a step that I do see people miss, whether you work in an organization that all your job descriptions say fast-paced, or you work in an organization where that’s not written down, but it always feels like it’s respond immediately, reply to emails, always be available.

Technology has made it often that despite the word asynchronous, you often feel like there’s this expectation that your value is in being fast in responding. And so you are, you’re getting things out. Sometimes you’re frustrated. You immediately respond with that.

The third word is act, so it doesn’t mean to stop or not do things at work, but it’s to take a breath, take a beat, sometimes take longer if it’s really something you need to think through, but it really is to give yourself an opportunity to consider other things, which is the second step because the pause is not just, “Okay, be quiet for a moment. Look strategic, like some YouTube trick of look strategic and then do exactly what you were just going to do. Just make it think and think that you’ve been thinking about it.”

But, yeah, this space. So it’s to consider, and you can consider things. The one thing I say to people, if you’re just going to remember one thing, is consider what you’d want to have happen if you were in that person’s position.

So, talking about job interview, for example. Like, if something is crazy, like my first job that I took, the title was marketing associate. This was not a marketing role. It was sales and it was cold-calling and it was called marketing associate, but, really, it was sales.

And so, whether it’s the titling of something or how you describe it or anything that’s going on at work, thinking about how you’d want to have the conversation on the other side because managers I really see, even if you’re not a manager at work, just thinking about the person on the other side of that, because we’re not thinking about that person from the receiving end.

So, okay, if something’s, this job is absolutely crazy, wouldn’t you want to know? And again, the way Pete phrases it, the things that might suck, the things that are great, but describing it, at least giving people the truth, and letting them decide.

Sometimes you’ll be disappointed because you really like someone and it’s not for them. Or, if you’re giving performance feedback and, “Well, I don’t want to do that. It feels mean.” Okay, well, what if I was on the other side and I knew my manager had feedback for me? I wasn’t doing something right. But they weren’t saying anything because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

But I’d probably say, “Well, let’s have the conversation. But maybe ask for my perspective or say it in a way that’s not going to hurt my feelings, or that doesn’t feel so harsh.” And so that consider is, really, I think the most helpful step to think about how you’d want to be treated.

Think about any other factors. Okay, they knew or they experienced. What are the what are the options? But then act is to actually do something about it. Like I mentioned, morning me often has a lot of expectations about how I’m going to act throughout the day. Sometimes I don’t feel like doing something. I say I’ll do it tomorrow. But making sure that you actually do the thing.

And so having the conversation, making the decision. If Pete and I are having a conversation, I give him an idea. And Pete says, “Let me think on that. Okay, I’ll get back to you.” Well, if you, Pete, never get back to me and I never hear anything about it, I assume that you’ve thought a lot about it. Maybe you’ve talked to people about it and you think I’m a complete idiot.

But reality, what’s happened is you probably forgot about it like a human being. And so the act is whether it’s making the decision, or if you are thinking about something, having a note for yourself, having a reminder so that you are getting back to people. And it’s really, again, not revolutionary, but three steps that, whether you’re in management or in any role, that can really help you be awesome at your job, no matter what that job is.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good, the pause, consider, and act, because, I guess, I’m thinking about, I’ve had a number of occasions in which I am in a meeting with my business partner and we’re talking to someone, maybe it’s a sales context, maybe it’s operational thing. And he keeps saying things, like, “Oh, I should have said that,” “Oh, I should have said that.”

And it’s usually because of exactly this. It’s the pausing and considering of that other person, where they’re coming from, what might they want to hear in this situation, as opposed to, you know, whatever, getting on to the next thing. Or, my hang up, I think, is more so that I get very excited and very curious.

So it’s like if someone sends me just an amazing piece of work, and so it sparks all kinds of new questions and ideas and possibilities. And so I say, “Oh, what about this? Well, what about this? Have you thought about that? And how about that?”

But what would be ideal is, before going down that, would be to talk about more positive interactions and fewer negative interactions to say, “Wow, this is a very impressive piece of work. Thank you so much. It must’ve taken a lot to pull all of this together. Wow, this opens up all kinds of exciting new opportunities and possibilities.”

Like, that took maybe 20 seconds. And then they say, “Well, yes, thank you. It was a lot of work and it feels good to be acknowledged.” And I’m not nowhere in my heart am I thinking, “I wish to punish this person,” or, “I take them for granted. And, of course, you just did your job. You don’t need a cookie or praise for…” you know? Like, that’s nowhere in my psyche, and yet I can blow right past it.

Ashley Herd
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d also want to get your pro tip when it comes to great meetings.

Ashley Herd
Well, I’d say two pro tips. One is for one-on-one meetings and one is for team meetings. My biggest pro tip for one-on-one meetings is to show up for them and show up on time and be focused. So that was kind of three things at once, but those are going to be things that sound very basic.

But it is wild when I do a scientific study of a video about one-on-ones with your boss, for example, and I make a video about you have a 30-minute one-on-one with your boss. The comment sections are much more than not comments of, “One-on-ones haven’t had those. They’ve been on the calendar, but I haven’t had one in about two years.”

Or, I’ll make a video about, “Okay, but you’re a boss that shows up 25 minutes into a 30-minute one-on-one, and says like, ‘Okay. Oh, I was meeting with SVP of XXYZ,’” but that happens constantly. And how you as a manager are probably thinking, “I’m giving an explanation of where I was,” but the team member is thinking, “Okay, well, wherever you are, you’re with people that are more important than me, but I have 47 things I really need to get through with you. So how are we going to make this happen?”

And so it is a step that, again, in the book, I have tips about things on agendas and how to make the shared agenda and how to make them more actionable. But it is amazing when you give people focus time where they know they’re going to be able to run through things, and you’re going to be looking at them, not at your cell phone, not at your second and third screens, all over the place.

But when you can have that time, it helps tremendously. It helps your team members, but it also often helps you avoid the people trying to reach you. Because you’ve told them, “Oh, I just have an open door policy. I don’t do one-on-ones. Come find me if you need me.”

And then everyone’s trying to find you, and it can feel crushingly stressful. And it’s, obviously, not effective. And so that’s my biggest tip for one-on-one meetings is to just consider how impactful that could be for both you and them.

For team meetings, I’ll just say one thing that’s a pro tip is in those, taking an opportunity to give opportunities to team members, including those that don’t speak up as much, but just to take a few minutes and you can rotate it, to talk about something that they do that feels super easy to them.

So maybe that’s a process they do. Look up, some people are going to be much more comfortable just talking about work and focus on a work thing that they know how to do. Other people, this may be the opportunity for them to say, “Oh, this is how I make this banana bread that I bring to every potluck. But these are my tips of how I do that.”

But why that can help is to give people an opportunity to explain something that choose whatever they want that really feels genuine. Or sometimes they’ve done something well and the manager say, “Okay, come and talk to the team about how you did that and some of the challenges you went through.’ But it also then can build that communication and confidence skills.

Again, it doesn’t have to happen every meeting necessarily, but it can absolutely be a way to give people who just show up to every meeting, otherwise, don’t feel like they have anything to say, but it can give them the opportunity to really have communication, learn from each other.

And I’ve sat through some of those meetings. And some of the things I can tell you, years later that I learned that stuck with me, even those non work-related topics, much more so than just any work-related thing. But it also changed the way that we work together because I saw those people as real humans rather than just super transactional.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell me, Ashley, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Ashley Herd
Well, the one thing I’ll say is, because if you’ve been listening to this and you’re not a manager and you think, “Okay. After listening to this episode, now I really want to become a manager. So I want to be good at my job,” one tip I have is, is to think about if someone gives you something, like if your boss asks you something, finding out why they’re having it, why they’re working on it.

And also explaining why you want to ask. So, “Okay, I’m meeting with Pete.” Pete says, “Okay, can you give me three bullets on this status that you’re working on?” “Okay, I can do that.” I may have no idea what Pete is doing that for.

But so if I add and say, “Okay, let me know what that’s for. And I ask because, if it’s for an email, I’m happy to format that in an email to the audience, or if it’s for a slide, I’m happy to put that together to require less work for you and make sure I know the audience and I’m creating less work for you. Not more.” It takes about seven and a half seconds to say more.

But when you become known for thinking just a step ahead in doing that, whether it’s putting something in a format that’s helpful for someone, or asking those questions, it helps you to become the person that’s trusted. And, again, we always have to be careful about then not being the go-to person that just takes on everything.

We all could use someone that we work with that helps think that step ahead. And so when you start doing that, not only can it help your own career, but sometimes it’s the ripple effect of how other people start doing that as well. So it can even come back and benefit you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes, those follow-up questions can change everything in terms of, “Oh, well, I would have done this in a completely different way,” or, “Oh, well, if that’s what you’re after, I don’t think what you actually need is three bullets, but perhaps instead is this other thing.” And it’s like, “Oh, fantastic. Thank you. You’re amazing.”

Ashley Herd
Totally, because you may even say at the bottom, one thing I did for managers constantly was say, “Okay, here’s what to say, and you don’t need to say this, but if someone asks this, this is what you can say. Just have some of that below this of the FAQs in case someone asks. And some of that information, again, can just help that person tremendously, but also also help in your career.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Ashley Herd
I do love the quote from Maya Angelou, that people forget what you said, but they never forget how you made them feel. And I know that’s one that is said quite a lot, but I see it. The more and more I live, the more years I have, which I wish I were Benjamin Button and reversing, but that hasn’t happened yet. But I think back to how true that is.

I first heard that years ago and I didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now. But so I think bringing that into the workplaces, it’s not just what you’re working on, but especially as a manager, you think about how you work with people. You can transform people’s work and also their lives outside of it.

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

Ashley Herd
There was recently research in Gallup, this was in, I think, January of 2026, that’s about how people are selected for management. And it really quantified this aspect of what percentage. I think it was 60. I may be misquoting that, but you can Google. But it’s how people are picked to be a manager and then what to do about it.

And so as organizations think about management, because I’m a huge proponent of not just selecting people for management, but exposing them, having a real two-way street considerations and career paths that don’t require you to be a manager. But it’s a really nice piece of research that just shows the reality that so many organizations have, which is how we started the episode.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Ashley Herd
I love A Separate Piece by John Knowles. I never went to boarding school, and it’s all about boys at a boarding school. But I read that when I was a sophomore in high school and it has stuck with me for some reason for decades.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool.

Ashley Herd
I’d say a calculator because when I was in elementary school, I was told I needed to learn math and so I worked really hard at it, and that I couldn’t talk for a living. And I do tend to talk for a living and I also relied much more heavily on a calculator than I’d like to admit.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Ashley Herd
I’d say a favorite habit is gratitude, both with yourself or with telling others. And sometimes it can feel super corny. And so if you have gratitude to express and it’s not something you normally say, and so, Pete, if you were to say, if I started telling people, I’m thankful for this because then people would call 911 because they think that you are being held for ransom and that’s your help signal.

You can say, “I was listening to Pete’s How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast, and the speaker, Ashley Heard at Manager Method, said to think about somebody that you’re grateful for and why you’re grateful for them, and text someone and tell them that, and tell them what you’re grateful for them for.

And any discomfort you feel for seconds will go away because they will likely feel delighted and they won’t think of it as, “Okay, you’re only doing this because you heard it on a podcast.” They hear this and think, “Well, of all the people that you know, you thought of me.” And so you can make someone’s whole day and far longer by expressing that gratitude.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that folks really connect and resonate with, and quote back to you often?

Ashley Herd
So in the book, I talk about how to not be a tight jeans manager, and also not be an oversized sweatpants manager, but to instead be a cozy joggers manager. So you can read in the book about what that means.

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

Ashley Herd
You can go to ManagerMethod.com, which is my website. You can kind of find me anywhere from there. If you go to @managermethod on different social media platforms, you can see some of my 59-second plays that I write and act most days.

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

Ashley Herd
It’s to try that. Try to do pause, consider, act. Like, if you find yourself immediately going to react to something, just pause and think about some of the different options and what you can do differently. You may do the same thing, but at least think it through, and I bet you may tweak something a bit.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Ashley, thank you.

Ashley Herd
Thank you so much, Pete. Thanks for having me and thanks to all for listening.