Creating High Performing Teams – Détails, épisodes et analyse

1 on 1s are the single most important tool managers have to be great leaders. You can use these meetings to help you bring out the best in your team, fix problems, get buy in, and so much more.

That’s why, as we wrap up Season 1, we’re bringing you all the best advice on 1 on 1s from our many amazing guests.  Listen in to learn what the most important things are for you to remember for your 1 on 1s, and get a preview of some episodes you may want to go back and listen to.

Lessons and links from today’s episode:

A big THANK YOU to our many amazing guests. In today’s episode we heard from:

• Mark C Crowley, from Episode 2,“Why You Should Lead from the Heart(and how to start)”
• Wes Kao, from Episode 4,“Managing Up: Advice for Mangers & ICs to master their most important relationship at work”
• Mike Pretlove, from Episode 7,“Building an Unconventional Career as a Leader”
• Fabian Carmago, from Episode 8,“8 Essential Things You Must Consider When Becoming a Manager”
• Jeremy Brown, from Episode 15,“How to Rapidly Grow from Team Lead to Executive.”
• Krzysztof Rakowski, from Episode 16,“How to Become a Better Manager in Just 15 Minutes a Week”
• Valentina Thörner, from Episode 17,“The Harsh Truths of Leading Remotely(and what to do about it)” 

Click the titles of any of the episodes to listen into them and see the show notes for that episode.

Show Notes

And a few links for you to learn more based on their advice:

• Mark C Crowley’s book “Lead from the Heart” can be found here as well as his interview on our blog here.
  • Learn why open door policies fail here.
  • Talking about the personal life of your team can be scary. It’s beneficial, but you’re not their therapist. Learn how to handle when the meetings get too personal here. 
• Wes Kao has a fantastic tweetstorm on managing up you can check out here. 
  • Learn more about managing up well here, and ask these questions of your boss to master managing up.
  • Getting buy in is important to as Wes discusses, which you can learn how to get buy in here.
• Mike Pretlove reminds us that building rapport and empathy for your team is hugely important. Learn over 80 ways you can connect with anyone. 
  • Giving feedback is great to do in your 1 on 1s. Learn a battle tested, proven way to give feedback to your team members and the podcast episode on it here.
  • You can also read about how Mike had the lowest turnover and highest engagement in his company by using Lighthouse software.
• Fabian Carmago mentions our post on the evolution of your 1 on 1s over time, which you can read here.
  • Being a good coach is a key part of being a great manager.
• Krzysztof Rakowski told us about how managers must always be learning and growing. A growth mindset is key for every manager. 
• Valentina Thörner told us 1 on 1s are a, “one hill I will die on” because they’re so important in remote environments.
  • Ask these questions to help support your remote team members.
  • Here’s Dr. Katerina Bohle Carbonell’s talk on analyzing communication patterns here.
• Jeremy Brown reminded us about the importance of using your 1 on 1s to coach and praise your team.
  • Praise your team regularly. Learn 21 ways to bring more praise and positivity to your team here. 

A giant THANK YOU to Jeremy, Valentina, Mark, Fabian, Wes, Mike, Krzysztof and our many other guests for sharing their advice, insights, and hard earned perspectives.

As you can see, even though we covered dozens of different topics in this first season, 1 on 1s keep coming up. They really are the centerpiece of great management.

Which is also why we built Lighthouse to help you make these meetings awesome. From helpful prep and structure to suggested questions for dozens of different topics, we help you be a better leader and expand the value of your 1 on 1s every day.

Sign up for a free trial here. 

And thank you for listening to this season! We’ve appreciated every bit of feedback and praise we’ve heard from you all on the season.

When is the problem not really THE problem? What do you do when your star player on your team underperforms or disappoints you?

The easy answer would be to pounce and criticize. To focus on immediately correcting the issue. Yet, if you do that, you’ll be making a big mistake. Instead, learn from a key lesson I stumbled on early in my career and dig a bit deeper.

In this week’s episode, I share a personal story about how I learned much more than I originally planned when I had to give some tough feedback and coaching to a star employee. You’ll learn what the problem was, what I planned to do, where the conversation went instead, and why that made all the difference in the world. It helped me see how leaders can play the long game to win big with their people.

Lessons and links from today’s episode:

1. The hiring method I like to use(give them an assignment)
2. Prepare for any 1 on 1 meeting to give feedback by following the Prepare Listen Act model:
   1. Learn the step by step process in our blog post here.
   2. And listen to Episode 2 for a hands on discussion about it.
3. When you have an issue with your team, make sure you check in how their world is going. You may find super important context out. Reserve judgment until you hear the full picture.
4. If you make it safe to talk about issues, you may be surprised how candid, apologetic and open your team may be with you. This is priceless.(Learn about creating psychological safety here)
5. Always look for the root problem. Don’t simply treat symptoms. 

• Ask why something disappointing may have happened and give them the benefit of the doubt. 

1. If your best people tell you they’re overwhelmed. Believe them. It’s hard to find replacement stars, so you’re much better off taking care of them. 

• Lighten the load
• Make priorities clearer
• Give them a break if needed
• All of these beat having to hire a replacement. 

1. Yet, always maintain your standards. We still did ultimately talk about the recruiting issue, because it was a problem. But first we fixed the root issue. 

Next time you have a team member that surprises you by coming in below your expectations with them, remember the lessons I learned here and dig deeper before correcting the surface level issues.

And if you need help organizing your thoughts to prepare to give feedback, and make the most of when your team opens up about challenges like this, then sign up for a free trial of Lighthouse.

Trusted by hundreds of managers every day, we help give them the right questions to ask for any situation, always be prepared, and improve the quality of all of their 1 on 1s and their leadership overall. Start your 21-day trial risk free here.

What does it take to become great at hiring? Why do so many companies have bad hiring processes? Rich Paret, a tech executive who has been a VP of Engineering at Twitter, a Senior Director at Google, and built teams a number of startups, has a passion for hiring.

He shares his advice on why so many people struggling with hiring and how you can bring the Evidence-Based Hiring process to your company to become great at hiring.

How do you step back from the day work of being an individual contributor to being a manager? What are the things you should start, stop, or continue doing? In our interview today with former CTO and now leadership coach Mathias Meyer, we talk about the unique challenges in the transition to manager.

If you’re a new engineering manager in particular, this is an essential episode for you. We dive into the challenges and tension of feeling up to date on technology and the work of your team, while not getting drawn into the productive feeling of writing code, which you shouldn’t do anymore.

What does it take to be a great manager? Two big parts are being organized and accountable. The consequences of not doing so are checked out team members and frustrated employees.

In this episode, the importance of being organized and consistently accountable are explored, as well as how you can improve in both of those areas. You’ll also learn more about common issues our company’s software will help you solve.

• Being organized and accountable is key as a leader:
  • When you’re not organized, you fail to keep your promises with your team
  • When you’re not sure what to do as a leader, you lose the confidence of your team
  • When you fail to keep your promises, your team starts to check out and not share important things with you.
  • And when you aren’t accountable, you’re team will not be, either.
• To fix all that, and have helpful structure, reminders, key tips, access everyone you’re working all day (like email, Slack, MS Teams, and on your phone) and more, we built Lighthouse software to help leaders like you. 

Key actions for you to take today from the interview:

• Start a free trial of Lighthouse and start having consistent, accountable, awesome 1 on 1s with your team, all risk free for 21 days at https://getlighthouse.com (No credit card required!)

• Books we talked about today:
  • Drive by Daniel Pink (And the related TED talk is here)
  • The Making of A Manager by Julie Zhuo
  • The Art of the Impossible by Steven Kotler
  • Grit by Angela Duckworth
  • Range: Why Generalist Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
  • How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie  

Key actions for you to take today:

1. What are the 3 best things someone can do if they’re thinking about becoming a manager to learn if it’s something they should pursue? 
2. For those already a manager, what are the things they should focus on to be successful as a new, first time manager? 
3. The Kindle Test: Start reading management books and blogs and see if that entices you to want to learn more. Does it feel like work?
4. Learn what management at your company is like
   1. Get coffee (real or virtual) with managers and ask them what it’s like. Ask: What are the values the company has for managers? What is the day to day like?
   2. Ask HR and your manager if they have career path documents you can check out to see what responsibilities and expectations there are for managers
5. Test out some of the key responsibilities of managers
   1. Mentor an intern
   2. Lead the onboarding of a new hire
   3. Get involved in interviewing
6. Look at your 1 on 1s try to evaluate how they are and try to improve them
   1. Learn more about 1 on 1s with our comprehensive guide here
   2. These meetings will evolve with each team member, here’s how they change
7. Coach a little bit more
   1. Try to ask a few more questions, a little less advice and directions
   2. Ask What and How questions to get them to open up  

How to follow and find Fabian

• You can follow Fabian on Twitter here, and his consulting practice and blog can be found at managingdev.com

What do you need to know as a first time manager? What are the biggest pitfalls to avoid? How can you pick the right job and opportunity to break into management? To answer these questions, and more, we sat down with Mike Pretlove, who has been a leader now for over 15 years. He’s led teams in a variety of roles, first managing designers, then a major operations role, and now as founder of a new software startup.

We cover a variety of key concepts to help you better lead and motivate your teams, like showing more empathy, giving the right amount and frequency of feedback, and improving your decision making skills. Listen in to find out what works and doesn’t as a new manager.

• The SBI model for feedback: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/hr/ua/media/2034/pdr-giving-feedback.pdf
• Other approaches to giving feedback:
  • Check out Episode 3 of our podcast:  FILL IN
  • 5 more ways to give better feedback:
  • How to turn around an underperforming team member
• Getting buy in from your team is really important. Learn how to do get their support for changes here.
• And if you’re interviewing for a new job, use these questions to make sure you work for a good manager.  

Key actions for you to take today from the interview:

1. Remember to start small with any changes so you do not overwhelm or get too much resistance from your team.
2. Then, remember these 3 steps you can take today:
   1. Get organized and be an organized leader
      1. Remember promises and key dates for your team.
      2. Be sure to keep your promises so your team will, too.
   2. Exercise empathy
      1. Get to know what they like and how things work best for them for feedback, praise, and communication.
   3. Delivering feedback on a regular basis
      1. Smaller and more often is better. Never surprise them at review time.
      2. Genuine, feedback or praise, once a week is fantastic.  

Where to find and follow Mike:

• You can find Mike Pretlove on Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpretlove/
  • He welcomes your messages or requests to connect after listening to the show.

Managers should be multipliers for their teams. How can you unlock their productivity and unblock them on time wasters? That’s what leverage is all about.

Eric Jorgenson, author of the Almanack of Naval Ravikant, has thought about leverage so much he’s got a whole course and blog dedicated to it. We have him on the Creating High Performing Teams podcast today to talk about how managers like you can apply leverage to your work day and unleash your team to focus on the highest value things they can do.

Show Notes: 

• Being a manager is about being a multiplier. Leverage is how you find was to multiple you and your team’s efforts.
• Book recommendation: Shape Up by Ryan Singer
  • Covers:
• Start with finding just one thing you can outsource. Be okay with it being 70-80% as good as you would do it…then reflect on how valuable it was to get that time back
• Other tactics and examples of leverage:
  • Write out your key decisions in a Decision Journal and reflect on the results after the fact
    • Include the details of the decision so it’s easier to understand all the date you had then
  • ConvertKit records a podcast for every new employee so people can get to know them at a time they choose at scale
  • Founder Shane Mac gives every employee on his team a budget to have an Executive Assistant to save time and offload any tedious/repetitive tasks.
  • Remember in Episode 5 with Wes Kao, they have a #repetitive channel that people can post when they’re doing the same thing again and again.
• What you can do as a manager:
  • Do the math on the value / cost of you and each employee’s time. Teach them to outsource or, where possible, do not do low value tasks.
    • Buying tools are high leverage; compare the monthly cost of the tool to your employee hours cost to do themselves.
  • “If you repeat yourself, record yourself” to create leverage, whether a template, instructions, or something else.
    • And on the flip side ask, “What can I uniquely only do?” and focus on this things.
  • Ask your team members in their 1 on 1s questions like:
    • What are you spending time on every day or week?
    • What do you spend a lot of your time doing? What’s repetitive? 

Key actions for you to take today from the interview: 

1. Study the idea yourself to really understand it
   1. Revisit Andy Grove’s legendary leadership book, “High Output Management” 
   2. Remember: There are no points for difficulty, so look for opportunities to get leverage with low effort on your part.
   3. It starts with one, so just find one place, and then build momentum from there.
2. What can they do right now with their team to make a difference?
   1. Teach them to prioritize high-impact projects
   2. Reward good outcomes, not inputs or effort with your team
   3. Avoid theater.
      1. Give more headcount or support profit center teams better
3. First Actions today:  

• What are you spending time on every day or week?  

1. Ask your team in 1 on 1s about how they could have more leverage: What do you spend a lot of your time doing? What’s repetitive? 
2. Do the calculation of your costs for your time and that of your team. Use that as a measure of how much ROI various tools and other investments have to have to justify the spend. 

Where to find and follow Eric Jorgenson: 

• Check out Eric’s course on building leverage in your life and career at https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage
• Subscribe to Eric’s free newsletter at https://www.ejorgenson.com/newsletter
• And you can read his blog posts on leverage here: https://www.ejorgenson.com/blog?category=Leverage

What are the key skills for managers like you to master as you start leading a new team? What does it take for you to become an amazing manager? How do you stand out so you are recognized as a potential senior leader?

In this episode of the Creating High Performing Teams podcast, we give you a run down of the most important skills to master as a new manager, and why they matter. Then, we tell you how you can start to build those skills with your team.

Show Notes: 

• You can read all about these skills and how to learn them here: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/professional-development-goals-for-managers/
• The Flaming Hot Cheetos story: https://www.inc.com/cynthia-than/the-mexican-janitor-who-invented-flamin-hot-cheetos.html (Note: this may be partially “Urban Legend”)
• The Toyota Total Production system and how they leverage the knowledge of all their workers: https://hbr.org/2008/06/the-contradictions-that-drive-toyotas-success
• The Books we mentioned:
  • Andy Grove’s High Output Management https://amzn.to/32UeuvF
  • Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People https://amzn.to/32Jk3Nt
• And some other links specific to parts of today’s episode:
  • What to talk about when managing a new team: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/managing-a-new-team/
  • Have amazing 1 on 1 meetings with your team by following this template: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/one-on-one-meetings-template-great-leaders/
  • How to give feedback: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/give-constructive-feedback-motivate-improve/
  • What is Task Relevant Maturity, and and how to apply it to your team: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/management-concept/  

Key actions for you to take today from the interview: 

• Pick out one skill from the list we gave you and start working on it this week.

What does it take to have a good relationship with your manager? How can you manage up in a way that creates win-win scenarios for you and the person most in charge of your career and work future?

In this week’s episode of Creating High Performing Teams, we have special guest Wes Kao who wrote an awesome, viral tweetstorm on the subject. We had her on to discuss the advice she shared, and to dig into the nuance of managing up that didn’t fit in the 280 character limit of Twitter.