625: Melody Wilding - Effectively Managing Up, Designing Your 1:1s, Getting Paid What You're Worth, Creating The 1 Pagers, & Earning The Triple Win

28:40And there's a difference. There's a difference between saying, okay, we got this feature set done versus saying, yes, this feature set is done. And here's what it allows us to do next. Or here's the feedback that we got from the product team about this. Very different approach versus just going through the checklist. And so you're starting with those wins. And the idea there is, again, your manager is busy. And especially in the hybrid environment, they may not know what you're doing. But this is also about moving from seeing this as self-promotion to seeing this as informing the people above you.

29:21Because you have a responsibility to inform your manager of what you're doing so that they can take that information. They can run it up their own chain of command to advocate for resources or get you into the room where decisions are being made. So I think that's a fundamental shift there. And so you're going to start that with some sort of a wins. And then you're going to move on to really the meatier portion of your one-on-one, which is identifying one to three key areas where you may need support or coaching from your manager. This is your time, again, to showcase some of that critical thinking, problem solving, and to workshop things with your manager.

30:06And again, the psychology behind this is starting to approach that relationship more as a trusted advisor and a partner. And also seeing your manager as a partner to you versus you just being someone who takes orders from them and your manager just spewing things at you that you need to do. So we have wins, then we have sort of that workshopping section. And then you're going to ask your manager about what's coming down the pike for them. And that gives you a lot of information to know, am I working on the right things? To ask, do you need support with that? Could I step in in that meeting or make this introduction for you?

30:42It allows you to, again, anticipate, find ways to inject yourself into situations, but also help your manager out. And then last is accountability. or contracting. Okay. We agreed today that I'll get you this and this by this date. And you had mentioned you were going to add me to that meeting. Would you like to do that now? Or should I send a follow-up message just to make sure we get that on the calendar? So there's accountability on both sides, the things you're going to be doing, but also the things you have asked for your manager and making sure you have next steps on that. Wow. That's so good.

31:18I remember one of my early mentors, a guy named Lee Rivas. Lee He was a West Point guy, a tank commander. And then after that wasn't enough incredible work serving our country, he went to Harvard Business School. And he was a super fast riser. And so I was like, God, I got to get to know this guy. Well, we had these regular calls. And I remember after I got promoted, I was like six months into my first management role. And I was a complete idiot. And Lee's like, hey, how are you taking care of your boss? And I was trying to think of a semi-intelligent way to answer when I had no idea what he was talking about when he said, how are you taking care of your boss?

31:54And I was like, well, you know, and he goes every Friday, send them a lit because he goes, you have your one-on-ones on Monday with your boss, right? I go, yep. And he goes, okay, every Friday, the end of the day, send them a list of real results and accomplishments of things that you did, as well as some other potential ideas for you to talk about for your one-on-ones. He'll love that. And I started doing that. And now Now I do that with everybody, clients and others. The primary word there is being proactive and taking ownership of that meeting. Take ownership of it. Your boss has a million things going on.

32:28How refreshing and how great is it for them if they see you're on top of it? They have plenty of other problems and people to deal with. When you're not one of those, in fact, you're the opposite of that, you are setting yourself up. And it works, Melody, as a forcing function for you to always be looking for, okay, how are we generating results? What are we actually doing? How am I ensuring I have the pulse and the understanding of my team, of the people I'm leading, of what's going on? because you know you're going to write that Friday email to get ready for that Monday one-on-one. And I like the idea of creating forcing functions as a way to make sure you're noticing, you're aware, you're on the front lines of what's happening as a leader so that you don't get too far away and not understand what's going on in your business.

33:18Because everybody can see when there's a manager or a leader who isn't tapped into what's actually happening. And those managers usually don't last for long and they certainly don't get promoted. So I think that idea, that's a great, great way to make sure you're taking care of your boss. Yes, yes. And if I could also add to that, there may also be times where you don't have tangible accomplishments to show. Things are just out of your control. But the key there is you can still frame that as a win if you talk about, here's how we're tackling this. Here's how we're thinking through this. So it doesn't always have to be that things are sunshine and rainbows and working out perfectly.

33:57That's not going to be the case. But your job is to show even when things are difficult and not going according to plan, here's how I am approaching that. And I think another thing about this one-on-one structure or nudging your relationship in this direction of partnership is that the structure we're talking about here also unearths areas where you can leverage your boss's power to get things done. And what I mean by that is often, I will have a lot of clients, again, matrix environments, really complex projects, lots of people involved. And sometimes for whatever reason, they just can't break through.

34:39Someone's not listening to them or following through on something, whatever it is. And when you've built this relationship with your manager, it allows you to say, we've hit a barrier on this project. And what I think would be really helpful at this point is if you came to the meeting and you sent the message that this is a priority for us, because I think people need to hear that from you. And that shows just next level organizational awareness that I think is just unmatched and that most people are not doing at all. Also, I love it if someone who works for me gives me a chance to kind of come in and help out.

35:19That's a great feeling. I remember being a VP of sales and when they would say things like, and they may have been like puffing my ego, hey, it would really help to have you in this meeting, even if you're just there, just to kind of help push this one over the edge. You being there is really important. And I think there's a number of reasons. One, that may just simply have been the truth. It also could have been them asking like, Hey, I want to show off to show you how good I am, or it could have just tried to make me feel good. But either way, like it was a win for the company. It was a win for that person.

35:48And I like people who are proactive like that. Okay. I want to get in Melly, if you're good with it, a few of the other parts of your book and the different types You've organized it in the types of conversations that you want to have. And I was really drawn to the feedback one, okay, because I think this one is tough. Normally, you think of feedback and you think of the boss gives the person that works for them feedback. Yes, that is part of it. We're talking about it going the other way. How does somebody get good and set up their relationship to effectively give feedback up instead of just giving feedback down?

36:26Yes. Yes. And as you mentioned, there's 10 conversations in the book. And I believe feedback, I don't want to get this wrong, but I believe feedback is number five. And so there are four other conversations before it. And that's important because the first one is alignment, right? We talked a little bit about that. You want me to go through the 10 real quick? Let's go through the first five. I think that would be, yeah. Alignment, styles, ownership, boundaries, and then feedback. So alignment, styles, ownership, boundaries, then feedback. So the order matters. The order matters a lot. The order matters.

37:01And specifically, just for a moment, we can loop back to this, but styles is important here because you have to understand your manager's frame of reference, how they see the world, what they're motivated by, because that influences how you're going to frame your feedback and present your feedback about the importance of why this change needs to happen. But let me leave that there for one second. So many of these conversations, you can't just dive into them without doing some kind of pre-work and self-searching to get yourself in the right mindset and position to have it successfully. And with the feedback conversation, I talk about defining your A, B, Cs.

37:47A is the assumption you are making. Usually, this is the negative label you're putting on that person. They're a micromanager. They can't give clear instructions to save their life. They're playing favorites with this other person, right? It's usually some sort of accusation even about their behavior. So define what you think the A is, then go to B. B is for behavior. If you were watching a movie, how would you be able to know or define that this person was a micromanager. I had a client a few weeks ago who was saying, when I'm presenting to this certain client, my manager is asking to see every single slide and communication that's going out to this company.

38:29That's a behavior you can work with. And the most successful feedback focuses on the behavior, not the assumption or the accusation. And so define the behavior. and then C is all about what is the change you would like to see? Because it's not going to go over well if you just go to your manager and dump a complaint on them and say, well, you need to change, be better. It's going to go over much well and you will get more of the actual solution you want and you think would be most helpful if you come with a proposal or a question. Let's say with a micromanager, you could say, could we sit down?

39:09I can bring you an understanding of what areas I think I can operate independently versus where your oversight would continue to be useful and we can work through that together and come to an agreement. And so the A is not something you're going to say, but the B and the C are. And when it comes to actually having that conversation, like you have to bring it up and sort of have the can we talk moment, you do want to start with getting some micro agreement like hey is this a good time to chat about xyz or do you have a minute for this get the person's buy-in and permission and always try to find a way to create a shared goal because trust is built on in the research they call this benevolence right and benevolence is a fancy word for does someone feel like you have their best interests at heart?

40:03Are you for them instead of against them? And benevolence in this case, maybe I really care about the success of our team, or I know this client is really important to us. I hope you would agree with that. So that's why I wanted to talk about this. And that sets up the stage for someone to be much more receptive. I think this can be tough when you work for, and I have a person in my head right now, unfortunately, I'm sure most people do, that is perfect in their mind. They've got it all figured out. They don't need to read books or listen to podcasts. They know it all. A bit of narcissism, perhaps, massive ego, whatever, all that stuff.

40:48We're all picturing that person. You want to give them feedback because there's so much to give, but you also realize, is this going to ruin everything? are those the situations that you just suck it up and deal with it until you go to the next place? Or how do you manage through a boss like that where there's so much there that it's beyond assumptions? They're kind of facts and it's known throughout the place. And again, we probably all literally have that thought bubble going up right now of an actual person. And I certainly do. What's the best way to manage through that when you have the narcissistic kind of ego-fueled boss?

41:24Yeah. Yeah. A couple of things. So, you know, before we get to the narcissistic kind, right, there are some questions you do need to ask yourself because you can't give feedback on everything and anything. If you do that, it is. It withdraws from the bank of social capital you have with that person until it's like you have nothing left. And so you need to think about, has this happened before, right? is you don't necessarily want to give feedback on something that the person could have had a bad day, could have been circumstantial. And so has it happened twice, three times, or have you seen it with multiple people across multiple projects?

42:04Try to look for that kind of rule of threes, that it is a pattern. Do you have all the facts of the situation? Again, have you talked to other people who are involved, or do you really understand the full scope of the pressures your manager may be under that's influencing them to act a certain way. And I think another helpful question is, will there be consequences if I don't give this feedback soon? I've been actually talking to a lot of clients recently who are saying, if this manager doesn't change something, I have my direct reports telling me they're going to quit. And we're going to be up a creek if we lose three, five of our people and have to replace them.

42:46And so that's a big consequence that necessitates you giving that feedback sooner rather than later. And then I think when you're dealing with a narcissistic manager, it's kind of a different ballgame there, right? You can, there's only starts to become so much you can do. This is where having other advocates beyond your boss comes into play because you also need people to give you a reality check. It's very easy to personalize your manager's behavior and think, I'm the only person they cut off or are constantly changing the goalpost on. And you need other people who can say, no, that's kind of the way they operate.

43:29And again, I had one client who did this where her manager was constantly taking credit for her work. And it unfortunately seemed to be a pattern where he wasn't doing this with some of the male colleagues, but with a lot of the female colleagues, he was. And so she kind of got more information about what was going on, but she really made a point of putting so much more of her energy in building other allies throughout the company. She volunteered for conferences that they were putting together. She would run panels. So she would meet other executives. And that eventually allowed her to build enough of a relationship with someone who said, my colleagues hiring in this other team, you would be a great fit for it.

44:15And they poached her out of that team. And so she sort of had to bide her time. I think all of this speaks to the fact that sometimes your mental health is more important at the end of the day and you have to weigh, will giving this feedback, am I prepared mentally and emotionally to deal with potential fallout from giving this feedback. And a lot of managing up is also pressure testing if this is an environment where you want to be. Because the people I work with, I'm sure the people that listen to this show are folks that want to put their head on the pillow at night and think, I did everything in my power to make this work.

44:58And at the end of the day, it's just not not where I'm meant to be or not where I can be successful. And so if you have the, try to have the feedback conversation and in the book, I give lots of techniques for how do you deal with resistance and pushback that you get. But at the end of the day, if someone is chronically gaslighting you, throwing you under the bus, you truly are working with a narcissist, then this is going to help you realize that sooner rather than later so that you can confidently make a choice to move on. Yep. Okay. I could go on about that forever. I'm going to move on. People should do if they find themselves in that spot.

45:36Okay. The advancement conversation. I know this happens at a lot of companies now, which when they do these employee opinion surveys, EOS for short, that I think a lot call them. One of the big things that pops up is employees say, well, there's not enough room for advancement. Well, that's because there's only so many jobs in leadership and there's a lot more individual contributor jobs. Let's say somebody feels like they're doing a really good job. They want to have the advancement conversation. They want to get promoted. They want to have this upward trajectory at their company. How do you have this conversation?

46:10How do you make sure that everyone is aware that you want to advance, that you want to get promoted and what's the right way to do it? You have to start much earlier than you think you might have to. And that goes exactly to what you were saying, that there are limited opportunities. And I also think reframing what advancement means. Because yes, there may be limited promotion spots. I work with some clients who will say, I only have two promotions I can give this year. That's it. And so you may have to think more creatively about what advancement means to you, whether it's a stretch project, maybe it's growing your team size from two to four people, maybe it's being able to shadow a different part of the company or own a bigger budget.

46:55You may have to think more broadly. But regardless of what you want that to look like to you, you need to start planting seeds early. Because as I said before, nothing that comes at the performance review should be a surprise. And you definitely should not wait until that moment to say to your manager, well, I thought I was getting a promotion. I thought that was in the bag because that decision has been made months in advance when budgets are being allocated and calibration is happening and headcount is being determined. And so early on, maybe three to six months in advance, you need to have a conversation with your manager to say, hey, in the coming year, I would love to move from manager to director level.

47:41What would you need to see in order to feel comfortable with that? And that does a few things. Number one, it puts your advancement front of mind for them. So they take it more seriously. It's not an afterthought. Number two, it allows you to surface objections or concerns they may have about your readiness or maybe you find out other people need to be involved in this decision. You learn more about the process to get there. and it helps you start building a roadmap that you can work against. So over time, I recommend also setting aside one one-on-one, a quarter that you earmark specifically for professional development because it's very easy for that to just get lost in the shuffle of the day-to-day.

48:25And in those conversations, that gives you the ability to say, all right, I heard that stakeholder management was an important area you wanted me to work on that you needed to see improvement. here's what I've done so far. Are we still on track for that promotion cycle later this year? And so again, getting it on the table, make sure that for both of you, it's not a surprise. It makes it harder for your manager to keep moving goalposts along the way as well. I think that goes both ways. If you're in a leadership position, a senior leadership position, there should be the the feedback and coaching for the current moment stuff projects things you're working on goals that are set for this quarter this day this week this month absolutely but as leaders it is our responsibility to make our team to make our company a great place to do great work and one of the ways to do that is to prove that you genuinely care for your people and you care for their long-term benefit.

49:25And so you are pushing to have longer-term developmental type conversations about their career and helping them develop the skills and even paying for training to help them develop the skills to one day either leave you or potentially get promoted with your organization. I think that's on us as leaders. This brought me back when you were talking about that, Melody, to earlier in my career. I had a director role in a more of a general management strategic type job at a company called LexisNexis working for this amazing woman named Dustin Kim, one of the smartest and most caring, just best, best bosses ever.

49:58I still love Dustin. We still talk. She's running a company called Artsy now in New York City and is just crushing it. Anyway, she was my boss. She was an SVP and I was a director and I got offered a VP of sales role outside of her organization. And I took it and I remember I called her to tell her and I was dreading it. She was in New York and I was in Ohio and I was dreading it so bad because I loved her so much. which I still do. And I said, Dustin, I just got offered this VP of sales role. It's a big jump. I'm going to take it. I'm going to leave. And I know how close we are and how much I love working for you, but this is just too big of a jump for me to pass up.

50:34And I remember the first thing she said, she goes, Ryan, why didn't you tell me? I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, why didn't you tell me that's what you wanted? Because it was VP of sales and I was in like a strategy management, strategy, organizational development type role. And she goes, I didn't think you wanted to go back into sales. And I go, well, Dustin is VP. It's a big job, big jump, good money, all this. And she goes, I have those roles in my organization. You could have stuck with me. I would have loved to do that. Why didn't you tell me I could have got this ready for you to make this happen soon?

51:07You should have told me. And I was like, yeah, she's right. I never told her that. I never said that I wanted to do that. I never had that advancement conversation. I never said like That would have piqued my curiosity. And that was my fault for not having told her. And we could have maybe made that work had I done that. So I think that's on us, again, to take ownership of your career and make sure the people you're working with know what you want to do. And you can't expect them to read your mind. And I will never forget that conversation that we had where she's like, why didn't you tell me? I was like, yeah, good question.

51:41I should have told you. So I think that's a big part of taking ownership of your career. Absolutely. Yeah. And what's underneath some of that as well is thinking about making yourself dispensable in your role because you can't move up. You can't move on to something else or expand in any way if you are the only person that can do your job. And if you are saying yes to everything, I can't tell you how many people I have come to me who will get feedback in their performance reviews or from leadership that says, well, we don't know if you're ready for the next level because we don't see you being able to ruthlessly prioritize or have hard conversations about what needs to be done and what doesn't.

52:26You don't know how to negotiate at that level. And who's going to do your job? And so what I also hear in there is you have to, yes, I am sure you had people that you needed to make more capable and coach them up and give them capacity in order to be able to move on, whether it was in that organization or another one. Yeah, so true. The money conversation, right? I think everybody's curious about this one. The money. When is the right time to negotiate salary? How do I make sure I'm getting the compensation I deserve? Melody, this one could go on forever. How do you do the money conversation? When do you do it?

53:03What's the best way to do it? Yes, money loaded topic, right? And there's never a right time because it's always a difficult topic and some things will always be opaque to you. You won't always be able to have transparency, but sometimes are better than others, right? You need to keep your finger on the pulse of how is the company doing? Do we have job postings going up or are we in a time of austerity and cost cutting. And so read the room. But when it comes to asking for money, what I find the biggest mistake people make is they focus too much on what they've already done and not enough on what they can do given greater compensation.

53:47Because we've talked about this the whole show, that your manager needs to make a case to people above them. All right, if I'm going to give Ryan, let's say 50K more. What are we going to get for that? Put it in a crude sort of way. And so you need to make the case to your manager. Yes, I've demonstrated I can operate at this level and provide higher value. But here's a general idea of what that value may be. I could take on this project. I'd be able to go after these clients because I would have more sway and buy-in. I could oversee a larger team, which means we would be able to move more quickly.

54:24So you have to be able to make both sides of that case. And then the other piece that I think people miss is that they focus on, I deserve this. I would like this money because I deserve it. And that may be true, but you will be much more successful if you frame it in terms of fairness. And so I want to make sure my salary reflects the scope I'm overseeing, or I want to make sure it's commensurate with this job title, for example. That type of language is more about writing the scales versus just giving you more money because you deserve it. So when you use that sort of fairness language, it taps into that human sense we have of reciprocity and wanting to make sure that people are taken care of.

55:17It's so good. You don't deserve money just because some time has passed. That's come up before. And I'm usually, I feel like on the other end of this where people are like asking for more, I'm like, wait a second, what? Just because time has passed, that's not how this works. Like what it's all about. And I try to bring the same thing to my clients now. Like I don't deserve anything. I don't deserve any money unless I'm bringing value. I'm adding value to your life for the people, my leadership development clients. If I'm not adding value to you way more than by the way, what you should be paying me.

55:48I think that's how in our line of work. You have to be a keynote speaker, whatever. I need to be providing way, way, way more value than what you're paying me. Then you can ask for more. Then you can ask for high ticket keynotes and those things like that. But I think it's always got to be future forward. Yes, you need some of the proof and the evidence that you've done big things in the past, but it's always got to be about moving forward and put yourself in their shoes. Especially if it's an owner or somebody who it's legitimately their money, you got to think about the value that you are adding moving forward, regardless of what you think you deserve.

56:19I think that's so big. Okay, Melody, we're right at time. I am curious if you have time for one more question. Yeah. Let me feel like you'd be really good at this one. You're meeting with somebody who's earlier in their career. Okay. They want to leave a dent in the world, perhaps like a college grad earlier on though. They want to leave it a positive dent in the world. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to the person who isn't quite sure what they want to do other than the fact that they want to leave a positive impact? Wow. What a question. I think something I had to learn the hard way that I come back to many, many times in my career is you teach people how to treat you.

56:57And you can't make a positive impact if you are running yourself ragged, if you are staying up till 11 p.m. responding to emails, you teach people how to treat you. And so if you stay silent, you may inadvertently be teaching people that you don't have anything of value to say. Or if you don't interject after someone has talked over you in a meeting, again, you may be inadvertently teaching people that your opinion doesn't have to be valued. Or if you respond to emails within two minutes of receiving them on a Saturday, that your time is not valuable. And so we have so much more control to shape the dynamics around us than we think.

57:44And when you do that, how people respond to you, when you show up differently, how people respond to you also changes as well. That's one thing I should say. And then the second goes back to what we were talking about way at the beginning, is that this idea of managing up is sleazy, it's gross, conniving, it's something you shouldn't do. When in actuality, when you have more sway, more power, whether that is positional power, information, resources, when you have greater influence, then you are in a position to make things better for everyone else. And so if you are a good-hearted, genuine person, then we need more people like you in power.

58:26We need people like you making decisions at the highest level. use that power for good love it the book is called managing up how to get what you need from the people in charge i highly recommend reading this i think it's very a combination of the story science practical application style that i love melody so thank you for taking the time to put this in writing it's a perfect title and i think anyone trying to build a career this would absolutely be useful melody thank you again for being here i love to continue our dialogue as we both progress. I think there could be a lot of conversations we could have.

59:03Absolutely. It was a lot of fun. So thank you so much.

59:11It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Melody Wilding. A few takeaways from my notes. Managing up is not kissing up. Managing Up is strategically navigating relationships with those who have more positional power than you, namely your boss. It is a critical skill set for maneuvering through the complex web of power dynamics, conversations, and unspoken expectations that shape our daily work lives. If you want to build a great career, you have to take ownership of it.

59:56Managing up and understanding how all of the power dynamics work is a useful skill to learn. I love that when she talked about the triple win. What is something you can do that is good for you, good for your boss, and good for the companies? Focus on those issues, solving those problems, and good things will happen for you as you grow your career. Think about Carly Fiorina. Run towards the fire. Solving those tough problems will help you, your boss, and your company. And then her idea of the one-pager. Absolutely do this for your yearly reviews to help your boss. But also even more so, do it on a weekly basis.

1:00:39Send them weekly, usually leading up to your one-on-ones, bullet points of what you've accomplished, how you've helped them, how you've helped the company as a whole. regardless of your role it will make your relationship better if you proactively design your one-on-ones help your boss make those conversations easier you can lead them you can become the type of person that they are so happy to speak with because you've done that work for them once again I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two hey you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Melody Wilding I think she'll help you become a more effective leader.

1:01:21And because you continue to do that, and you also go to Spotify and Apple podcasts, and you subscribe to the show, really important. And you rate it, hopefully five stars, and you write a thoughtful review. And by doing all of that, you are regularly giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.