Management Café
84 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 days ago - ★★ - 1 ratingSeason 4: Join co-hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti as they chat about what they've learned through their time leading teams.
Season 3: Oh No, My Team's Gone Remote!
Seasons 1 and 2: Improve your management and leadership practice over a cup of coffee and get a book recommendation too.
The role of the manager is evolving as technology helps us to self-organise and take more control of how and where we work from. In this podcast, Pilar Orti from Virtual not Distant, dissects modern management practice, not just for official managers, but for team members who want to make things happen too.
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Episodes
MC81 Manager Emotions: Anger
June 24, 2024 16:56 - 33 minutes - 26.7 MBThis marks the first of our series on manager emotions, where we discuss some of feelings we experience at work. Anger is one of the more complex emotions for a manager to navigate. Anger is about a perceived wrong and our desire to find a resolution. On the one hand, anger can be energising and act as a powerful catalyst for change. It shows us, and others, what is important to us. But when expressed inappropriately anger can be a destructive force. Many people are uncomfortable being ex...
MC80 Why Do We Procrastinate? (or what is procrastination, anyway?)
June 10, 2024 16:05 - 27 minutes - 22.1 MBJoin our hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti. Most of us are familiar with avoiding a task that we should be doing. But is there more to it? On the one hand we worry that procrastination leads us to being totally unproductive. But is being hyper-efficient realistic? Don't we sometimes need to break the cycle of busywork? Procrastination might actually be telling us something important about the task and ourselves. Managers might find themselves rescheduling a difficult conversation or dela...
MC79 Context is Everything!
May 27, 2024 15:36 - 20 minutes - 16.3 MBA theme we keep coming back to in the Management Café is the importance of context. In each situation there are many variables that influence what happens. For example the company culture, our manager, our team, the particular task and our own capability. Sometimes we have to accept that the current context is not good one for us and we're not going to perform at our best. This can be hard to reconcile, many of us have an expectation that we can handle all challenges. But this realisat...
MC78 Helping Employees Avoid Burnout from Challenging Tasks
May 13, 2024 16:42 - 27 minutes - 22.4 MBStep into the Management Café with your hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti. This conversation was inspired by an article Pilar read in Organizational Dynamics: "How managers can help employees navigate tough decisions without burning out by Andrew Molinsky and Laura Noval. They describe a specific type of burnout, that which arises from having to continuously perform challenging tasks. This is different from the burnout that comes from chronic overwork or being under prolonged stress. And...
We'd love your input into our new series on Manager Emotions
May 06, 2024 16:05 - 4 minutes - 3.98 MBA short bonus episode to let you know what's brewing in the Management Café. In about a month, we'll be starting a new series, on manager emotions. In each episode, we'll dive into a specific emotion, discussing what it feels like, its purpose, and how it can help or hinder us as managers. Our recent episode on regret resonated with listeners, and we both enjoyed it very much! It highlighted the importance of discussing emotions as a manager and how they shape our management practic...
MC77 Evaluating potential in the people we manage
April 29, 2024 14:55 - 28 minutes - 22.9 MBOur hosts in the Management Café believe that everyone has the potential to be better at something. And for them, as for many of us, helping someone grow is one of the most rewarding aspects of being a manager. Similarly for employees it's a wonderful feeling to have a manager who believes in us, gives us opportunities to improve and offers their support. However it's important for managers to recognise that not everyone wants to get better right now. Perhaps they are finding their self-ac...
MC77 Evaluating Potential in the People We Manage
April 29, 2024 14:55 - 28 minutes - 22.9 MBOur hosts in the Management Café believe that everyone has the potential to be better at something. And for them, as for many of us, helping someone grow is one of the most rewarding aspects of being a manager. Similarly for employees it's a wonderful feeling to have a manager who believes in us, gives us opportunities to improve and offers their support. However it's important for managers to recognise that not everyone wants to get better right now. Perhaps they are finding their self-ac...
MC76 Manager regrets: how situations changed us and what it means to us now.
April 15, 2024 16:42 - 28 minutes - 22.9 MBSeveral times recently in the Management Café our hosts have talked about regrets. Those formative management experiences where they look back and wish they had acted differently. Making mistakes is part of our learning journey but some situations weigh on us more than others. Revisiting them can bring a range of challenging emotions like regret, guilt and shame. Regret is an uncomfortable feeling, it's something we avoid. The discomfort can be heightened for managers who have a duty of ca...
MC75 Why Does Management Have a Bad Name?
March 25, 2024 17:05 - 27 minutes - 22 MBGet in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ Let's face it, management has a mixed reputation. It seems like everyone has a story to tell about their manager doing something poorly. But when we break it down, often times it's that we've had a bad experience with a manager. That person might actually be an ok manager overall or even a good manager. But in this instance they did something wrong. Something we keep coming back to in the Management Café ...
MC74 Article Analysis: Learning in the Flow of Work
March 11, 2024 17:56 - 27 minutes - 25.3 MBTim and Pilar discuss an article featured in the Jan/Feb 2024 edition of the Harvard Business Review: "Leading in the Flow of Work" by Hitendra Wadhwa, Founder of the Mentora Institute. Hitendra posits that "rather than (being) a trait to be acquired, leadership is a state to be activated" through preparation, self awareness and reflection. By managing our internal state and matching our actions to the context, we will function better and more authentically as leaders. The article especia...
MC73 GenAI: Friend or Foe?
February 26, 2024 17:57 - 33 minutes - 26.2 MBIn 2024 Generative AI is still an a rapidly emerging technology. We know it's going to impact lots of jobs and work behaviour. But it's not yet apparent how that impact will be felt. There is a big difference between ChatGPT helping you with a task (e.g. summarising your notes or drafting a communication) vs using it to entirely perform the task (e.g. using AI generated output without editing). Managers need to be mindful of how they are using AI, especially as it is increasingly embedded ...
MC72 The Emoji Manager
February 12, 2024 17:45 - 19 minutes - 18.2 MBFollowing on from coffee #71 about the impact of technology on our leadership practice, Pilar and Tim talk about emoji as a communications tool for managers. Tiny and ubiquitous, it's easy to underestimate their importance. But when used skilfully, emoji give us a visual language that can provide faster and more concise communication. Within the context of our teams and companies this communal language and interpretation can be another way for us to bond. Unfortunately when used without c...
MC71 The influence of technology on management practices
January 29, 2024 17:17 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBWe hear a lot about tech. Tech disrupts businesses and creates unicorns. Tech changes workplaces and creates new ways to interact. But what about the impact of technology on our management practices? Our hosts talk about the difficulties that come if we allow technology to dictate how we manage. And the unintended consequences if we don't align our technology tools with the problems we are experiencing. 00:30 mins Tim still writes everything into notebooks that he carries around and claim...
MC70 Self-Leadership is the Foundation of Management with special guest Morgan Legge
January 15, 2024 17:25 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBThe wonderful Morgan Legge, founder of Pivot Your Work and Head of Organizational Change at Convert.com, joins the Management Cafe! Morgan, Pilar and Tim met through online communities and podcasting, a great example of what we discussed in #65 "Building a network outside your organisation". You might need 2 coffees for this wide ranging conversation covering Morgan's path to her leadership style, self-leadership, holacracy, how managers can protect their team against a toxic company cult...
MC69 Transparency in management: Balancing openness and discretion
December 11, 2023 17:16 - 24 minutes - 22.3 MBManagers sit at the crux of organisational transparency and discretion. They need their employees and organisations to share information with them and are regularly deciding what to pass on and what to keep confidential. It's a tough balance. People need the right information to feel secure and do their job, but too much information can be overwhelming. Context and alignment are essential. Ideally managers want a match between their own desired level of transparency and their company's ove...
MC68 Generational differences in the workplace
November 27, 2023 17:00 - 26 minutes - 24.2 MBThis week our hosts (both Gen X) dig into the differences between different generations of workers. There have been endless articles and presentations on topics like "How to work with Millennials". But for Pilar and Tim there are inherent dangers in assigning behaviours to an entire group of people based on the year they were born. Whilst being the same age should mean we share some collective experiences, this doesn't always translate across other factors like geographical location, cultu...
MC67 The Dynamics of Group Conversations
November 13, 2023 17:41 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MBPilar and Tim are back having a conversation about conversations. Following on from #66 which covered 1:1 conversations, in this episode they dive into group discussions. Facilitating a group adds another layer of complexity - for example giving more time to one person means less time for everyone else. And people behave differently in group conversations. There are more people to be mindful of, more rapport to build, more status to be won and lost. And for managers it is a challenge. The...
MC66 Managing the dynamics of individual conversations
October 30, 2023 16:12 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBPilar and Tim have a meta conversation about conversations. Participating in a good conversation means we listen, we get to talk, we feel heard, we deepen our understanding of a topic and we build connection with the other person. However not all conversations are created equal. Sometimes we are in a glorious free flowing exchange of ideas and other times we have internal dialogues about the conversation running parallel with the conversation itself. "Am I talking too much?" or "Are they...
MC65 Building a Network Outside Your Organisation
October 16, 2023 16:36 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MBAs managers we will normally have a peer network within our company. But occasionally we might experience problems that our in-house peer network can't help us with. For example, when the issue is with those same colleagues or our organisation itself. At times like this an external professional network can be invaluable. In this conversation Pilar and Tim primarily talk about networks which can provide different forms of support such as showing a different perspective, learning from someon...
MC64 Men's Mental Health at Work
October 02, 2023 15:47 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBOur hosts discuss the recent research by Jindi Mann into men's emotional experiences at work. It is easily downloaded as a pdf and it's freely available - no email signup or any hoops to jump through. They surveyed 55 male managers, primarily British and working in a mid to senior management role. The results show a surprisingly broad range of responses. Over coffee Pilar and Tim explore what it means to be a male manager. A big theme that emerges is that whilst 21st century corporate leade...
MC63 Are Our Brains Wired for Modern Leadership?
September 18, 2023 15:31 - 31 minutes - 28.5 MBPilar and Tim discuss the fascinating article 3 Ways Our Brains Undermine Our Ability to Be a Good Leader by Cian McEnroe and David Rock at the Neuroleadership Institute. David's book "Your Brain at Work" was one of the first to bring brain science into leadership. In this latest research they argue that our basic brain behaviour can get in the way of our work as leaders. They go even further to suggest that the experience of leading can evolve our brains in ways that make it even harder t...
MC62 Getting the most out of one on ones as a manager
September 04, 2023 16:43 - 29 minutes - 27 MBAction-centred leadership asks managers to juggle three priorities: the team, the task and the individual. and in this conversation Pilar and Tim discuss one-on-one meetings, one of the best tools that managers have to work on their relationship with an individual employee. Over coffee we talk about the nuances of this style of meeting and the myriad ways managers can benefit from them. Spoiler alert: Tim is a huge fan of one-on-one meetings. Today's shows are full of links, and one or tw...
MC61 Emotional Leadership Theory
August 21, 2023 16:36 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBGoing deeper into their exploration of different leadership styles, and inspired by this article on the MindTools blog, Pilar and Tim look at the Emotional Leadership Theory pioneered by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. It ends up being another therapy session in the café as Pilar and Tim talk about their own preferences, strengths and weaknesses. 02:30 mins We step through the six styles of Emotional Leadership: Visionary (come with me), Coaching (try this), Affiliative ...
MC60 Who ends up in management positions?
August 07, 2023 16:05 - 23 minutes - 21.9 MBThere are far too many leaders who don't really want to be managers. Given most workers cite their manager as their main reason for leaving a company, this is a big problem. It's hard to love your job when your boss hates theirs. How do so many people end up as managers when they shouldn't? Who should be a manager? Is leadership a natural trait or a learned skill? It's a wide ranging conversation in the café today, including a rare disagreement between our co-hosts Pilar and Tim! 00:00 mi...
MC59 Action-centred leadership: a truly useful model
July 24, 2023 16:05 - 18 minutes - 17 MBContinuing with our discussions on leadership frameworks, Pilar and Tim discuss John Adair's Action-Centred Leadership which was first introduced in 1973. Adair uses three overlapping circles to illustrate that effective leadership happens at the intersection of the task, the team and the individual. And it is this deceptive simplicity which is a big part of the appeal. The model doesn't rely on a particular leadership style or organisational culture. Instead it reminds us that if we "zoom...
MC58 Leadership on a spectrum: Laissez-faire and authoritative Styles
July 10, 2023 14:26 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBInspired by the article about leadership on the Asana blog, Pilar and Tim discuss Kurt Lewin's 3 leadership styles. In a seminal study conducted in 1939, groups of 10 year old children were given a craft task and assigned an adult leader using either an authoritarian, democratic or laissez-faire leadership style. They concluded that democratic leadership was the most effective. Pilar and Tim share their experiences of these 3 styles and spend some time debating the laissez-faire and autho...
MC57 The role of emotions when hiring
June 26, 2023 15:47 - 27 minutes - 25.1 MBInspired by Liz and Mollie's wonderful book "No Hard Feelings" we talk about the role of emotions in our work, especially when hiring. One of the key principles in this book is that our emotions are a part of who we are at work and they impact our behaviour. Being aware of this helps us better understand ourselves and others, and ultimately helps us make better decisions. Choosing who to hire is an important task for any manager. It's also a great example of a decision where we need to be ...
MC56 All eyes are on you: Role modelling behaviours as a manager.
June 12, 2023 16:05 - 20 minutes - 18.8 MBOne of the pressures we can feel as a manager is the pressure of attention. We watch our managers closely. We analyse their behaviours and motivations. We guess at their intentions. And this informs our judgements about cultural norms and which behaviours are encouraged or discouraged. In fact, the attention of our team gives us the opportunity to be a positive influence through role modelling. We can use their attention to encourage people (including us!) to adopt behaviours that we thi...
MC55 The challenge of remote disengagement
May 29, 2023 16:16 - 23 minutes - 21.3 MBFor this episode we used a different format. Pilar and Tim spotted a question in a community they're members of, and with the permission of the poster, we've chosen to discuss it over coffee. This was the question: "Remote workers are faking enthusiasm. As a manager, I struggle to assess the motivation and engagement of my remote workers. Employees are very good are presenting a positive image during check-ins.This makes it very hard to identify issues and provide targeted interventions ...
MC54 Why We Love "Radical Candor" by Kim Scott (and why implementing it is so hard!)
May 15, 2023 16:46 - 27 minutes - 24.8 MBWe reference this book all the time. In today's conversation we learn why Radical Candor resonates so much with us and how we've used it in our own work. The core principles of the book shouldn't really feel radical, it should be commonplace to care about the people we work with and tell them our honest thoughts and feelings. And yet for many of us this is hard to do. Radical Candor challenges us to be vulnerable with our emotions and more adaptable in our communication. This can be partic...
MC53 The problem with motivating others
May 01, 2023 16:05 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MBAs a manager our success is really dependent on the success of our teams. Yet there is something a bit topsy-turvy about the idea that managers are responsible for the motivation of our people. Much of motivation is intrinsic, most people inherently want to do good work. In fact often times work, even the work of the manager, can get in the way of people's natural motivation. If the manager's responsibility is to remove obstacles for the team... are there times when we should remove oursel...
MC52 The problem with adopting Amazon's one-pagers and other best practices
April 17, 2023 16:27 - 26 minutes - 24.4 MBJeff Bezos called the one-pager the "smartest thing we ever did at Amazon". And everywhere we look there are best practices and frameworks which worked wonders for big & successful organisations. So why do they often fail when we apply them in our organisations? We propose that best practices are not something to "lift and shift". Adopting practices without a proper assessment is risky. But going too far the other way can be it's own trap. We can dismiss something too quickly if we haven't...
Taking a break from our coffee breaks
April 03, 2023 16:57 - 2 minutes - 2.28 MBA quick voice note to let you know that we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Until then, let us know if you have any questions you'd like us to answer on the show, or any topics you'd like us to tackle. Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/
MC51 Manager as umbrella: Protecting the team from the storm
March 27, 2023 19:23 - 21 minutes - 19.4 MBThe notion of a manager as a protector of the team is deeply embedded. After all, a primary part of any manager's job is to remove roadblocks and distractions so their team can stay focussed on their objectives. But it's not always easy to decide what will distract the team versus what might be helpful to them. Should the team know when a storm is forecast? When a storm is happening? And how much context do they need about the storm itself? Pilar and Tim explore some of their experiences ...
MC50 Celebrating big and small
March 20, 2023 17:50 - 20 minutes - 18.4 MBWe tend to miss the smaller moments of achievement. Our focus is often on big organisational or team goals, huge milestones where we come together to celebrate (like the 50th episode of Management Cafe!). But in today's coffee catchup we are talking about more personal achievements. The sort of things which seem less consequential on the surface but can have an outsize impact on our performance. "Small-c celebrations" can tap into our deepest personal motivations as a manager, highlightin...
MC49 Manager burnout
March 13, 2023 17:23 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MBIs it just us, or does it feel like the last few years have been a particularly torrid time for managers? Managers have always been the interface between employees and their organisation. They act as a kind of translator between the two. In recent years there have been extraordinary challenges in both directions of those relationships. And all this against a backdrop of pandemics, social polarisation, economic uncertainty, tight labour markets and of course the remote work / back to office...
MC48 Developing your leadership style
March 06, 2023 17:42 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MBMany leadership journeys start with a natural career progression: we get promoted to manager and leadership is viewed as just another work task. Over time this evolves into a broader understanding. It's a challenging job. We will get tested in all sorts of ways. And it can be an opportunity to learn so much about ourselves, to grow as a person and build invaluable skills. But we all have to start from somewhere. And the way we manage is heavily influenced, even constrained, by the culture ...
MC47 Can we be "too authentic"?
February 27, 2023 17:40 - 21 minutes - 19.7 MBFollowing on from episode 44 where we discussed vulnerability and authenticity, today in the café we go deeper on how much of our true character should we show at work. Is it entirely our choice? Are there parts of ourself that shouldn't be in our workplace? This is such a nuanced topic as we have to juggle our level of self-awareness, our assessment of our work environment, the degree of comfort that we feel and, of course, our highly subjective interpretation of how others perceive us. ...
MC46 Proactive wellbeing
February 20, 2023 17:35 - 28 minutes - 26.3 MBThe pandemic changed workplace awareness of physical and mental wellbeing. So what does it look like in 2023? We discuss what managers can do to pro-actively improve wellbeing for their workers. This can be a challenge for leaders as wellbeing is something we experience at an individual level, but it is influenced by factors inside and outside the workplace. What is a manager to do? 0:10 min Did the pandemic change workplace wellbeing forever, or was it a temporary shift? 5:30 Work isn't o...
MC45 The dangers of focusing on productivity and metrics
February 13, 2023 17:44 - 19 minutes - 17.5 MBMetrics are very alluring for managers. Our software tools are full of data and reporting... with just a few clicks we might get the magic mix of numbers that will give us control. But for staff it's a different story. Too often metrics are used as a kind of straight jacket. Work becomes narrowly defined, devoid of nuance and complexity. Targets creep ever higher. And as the pressure mounts, inevitably people will try to game the system. Over coffee Pilar and Tim try to imagine an environ...
MC44 The value of being an "authentic leader"
February 06, 2023 18:10 - 25 minutes - 22.9 MBFor a long time the dominant narrative of leadership has been of fearless leaders who move from triumph to triumph without serious flaws or doubt. But in recent years there has been a move towards authentic leadership. Leaders who show vulnerability and who share their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Over coffee Pilar and Tim dig into authentic leadership, the benefits it can deliver for leaders and companies. And also why it isn't for everyone. 0:30 min Tim references this quote ...
MC43 Working with people who challenge us
January 30, 2023 19:19 - 23 minutes - 21.9 MBWe often need to experience some challenge in order to grow. But tension can easily spill over into destructive interactions. As leaders we need to demonstrate that we can challenge and be challenged. In this chat Pilar and Tim learn they have quite different thresholds for conflict. And they explore the difference between being challenged constructively vs destructively. 0:30 min Sometimes creative tension is actually just fighting. 3:10 People are always watching how their leaders deal w...
MC42 War time leader or Peace time leader?
January 23, 2023 17:29 - 20 minutes - 18.8 MBIn today's coffee Pilar and Tim discuss the concept of Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO introduced by Ben Horowitz in 2011. Our companies and teams will all face difficult times where there is an existential threat or huge change looming. How do we lead through these challenges? Do we need a different leadership style to match the situation, and what is the impact "wartime leadership"? 3:50min Some people thrive off the energy and pressure that comes during times of crisis or change. 5:30 We worr...
MC41 Running a business with someone else
January 16, 2023 17:06 - 25 minutes - 23.2 MBPilar and Tim explore their experiences of being co-founders or co-managers, as well as being solely in charge. The co-founder dynamic is inevitably going to experience some challenges as a business has its ups and downs. The way that founders communicate, collaborate, challenge and complement each other has a huge impact on the culture of the company and its success. This coffee is, yet again, something like a joint therapy session... prepare for a lot of talk about communication, values ...
MC40 Is the most important role of a manager to "give the quiet ones a voice"?
January 09, 2023 17:51 - 25 minutes - 23.2 MBThis concept comes from Kate Murphy's excellent book "You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters". For many of us silence can be challenging, it is often considered a sign that something is wrong. What happens when we approach the quiet ones with curiosity? 1:30min Who are the quiet ones? Why might they be quiet? 3:00 Tim shares a story of a manager who was often quiet for an unexpected reason. 5:00 There is a big difference between choosing not to speak and not feeling ...
MC39 Food, a manager's best friend
January 02, 2023 17:16 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MBFrom the hidden power of the humble custard cream to the value of fancy restaurants, Pilar and Tim explore the role that food can play in our leadership practice. This is not discussed in business school curriculums, but something changes when we make the conscious step to stop our work activities so we can share food together. Eating together can be a powerful way to change the atmosphere of a workplace. 1:00min Pilar shares her brilliant theory of how bringing custard cream biscuits to a ...
MC38 Tackling the asynchronous environment
December 19, 2022 17:28 - 22 minutes - 20.6 MBWhat happens for managers when work moves away from real time meeting focussed and more towards asynchronous? Communication and team interaction can be as unique and nuanced as each individual human. So how do we navigate management when our team are spending large parts of their time working async? 1:30mins We talk about some of the pros and cons of asynchronous work. 6:00 Tim highlights the importance of having alignment within a team about what is async work and what needs to be done mo...
MC37 The multiple aspects of meetings
December 12, 2022 17:10 - 22 minutes - 20.3 MBIt's hard to imagine a manager without meetings. As leaders we don't just participate, we also need to run great meetings. All sorts of interesting and unique things can happen when people come together for a group discussion. And yet many of us have a love/hate relationship with meetings. 1:30mins Tim explains what he likes about meetings. 2:30 Pilar recalls the frustration that comes when the enthusiasm generated in a meeting doesn't actually result in actions. 5:00 We discuss how leade...
MC36 Manager or psychologist?
December 05, 2022 17:46 - 14 minutes - 13.5 MBWhen do we stop being a manager and cross into therapy? Understanding and analysing human behaviour is an essential skill for managers. But most managers aren't professionally trained psychologists. How should managers be emotionally supporting their direct reports and what lines should they not cross? 0:50mins Where do we draw boundaries as an employer and employee? 3:30 Is it the manager's job to help people express their emotions? Pilar recalls this great scene from the show Superstore...
MC35 Developing people
November 28, 2022 17:46 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBManagers have a responsibility to help their people discover and sustain the best version of themselves. But is this just in the context of our specific role and responsibilities? Or can we use work as a place to practice being a better human being? Tim and Pilar dive into people development. 1:50mins What sort of environments are conducive to personal development? It can be different for each person 3:45 Pilar talks about the sort of person who thrives in high pressure and stressful situ...