Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:55: 1: Finding work/life fit

00:04:22: 2: Making the most of your one-to-ones

00:07:48: 3: Stop being a people-pleaser at work

00:09:40: 4: Exploring progression possibilities

00:12:39: 5: How to be a good manager

00:14:51: 6: Assertiveness

00:19:02: 7: How to ask better questions

00:21:49: 8: How to negotiate for what you need

00:24:48: 9: How to manage your monkeys

00:27:42: 10: When to lead and when to follow

00:29:35: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Each week, we share ideas for action and tools to try out that we hope will help you, and it always helps us, navigate Squiggly Careers with a bit more confidence, clarity and control.

Sarah Ellis: And this week, we thought we would take ten actions from our top ten most listened-to podcasts of all time.  So, this is not one of those episodes, before you stop listening, where there's no new content, those ones that can be a bit frustrating where it's just like, "Here's an edit of things that we've done before".  We are recording this live everyone, and there are ten ideas for action that we're going to be talking through.  But what we have looked at is, since we have started the podcast, I don't even know what year that would be, Helen, do you know how long ago that would be?

Helen Tupper: 2017 was when we started the podcast.

Sarah Ellis: Crikey, that does feel like a lifetime ago!  We look back at the most listened-to since then, so what are we, over 300 episodes in.  Now, slightly confusingly, the most listened-to podcast that we've ever done is actually called Ten Actions to Accelerate Your Career Development!  So, obviously we're not going to talk about that one because that would be a repeat, so what we've taken is the next ten after that, we're going to very quickly, for each of them, it's going to be pretty short, sharp and specific, we hope; so, what the topic is, give you one coach-yourself question and one idea for action for each of them.  So hopefully, this will just feel like a really good, bit of a refresh, bit of a reset on things that we know are important to lots of people because lots of people have listened to them.

Helen Tupper: And we're going to keep it pretty pacey because there are ten to go through, but it will all be summarised in the PodSheet for you.  So, PodSheets are the downloadable summaries that we do of every episode.  You can always get them from PodMail, which is a weekly email we send, you can sign up for that on the website; or on the website under Podcast, you can just click on the relevant episode and you'll also be able to download it from the episode there as well. So, I'll go first, and in at number one was our episode on how to find work/life fit, which we think is a better way of talking about the different things you're putting together than the idea of balance, where everything's supposed to be in perfect alignment. 

The coach-yourself question that we recommend you reflect on is, "What have I done before that has improved my work/life fit?"  And the idea for action that we think is useful for you to take is to think about "we fit" versus "I fit". Often, when we're thinking about this idea of work/life fit, it becomes quite I-centric so, "What can I do differently?"  But in reality, our ability to make work/life work together has lots of interdependencies with other people, like your partner, if you've got children maybe the people who are involved in childcare, maybe your colleagues picking things up for you. 

There's often a lot of people that are involved in making your puzzle pieces work for you. So, the idea for action here is to consider who are the three most important people to support your work/life fit, so for example for me it would be my husband, Gareth; it would be Sarah, who you're talking to here now; and it would also be Amanda, who is the amazing person who looks after my children in the day when I'm doing all things Squiggly.  Those three people are really fundamental for me to make my work/life fit work. I think it's also really important that when you've identified those people, you make sure that they know how you appreciate them, because they're really fundamental to this fit working and it is important that you show that appreciation to them, as well as talking to them about what that help might look like in the future to make all these different bits of your work and your life fit together.

So for example, I might say thank you for Sarah for being so flexible, because there are times sometimes when we swap things around in our diary, so I would be specific about that so I could show my appreciation and let her know how important that is for me.  And then I might say, an ask for the future might be to protect my time when I go on the Peloton, for example, which is something for me that is a really important way that I almost have a break between my work and my homelife; there's something that happens to me on Peloton, which just gives me that moment for me, when I'm not about family and I'm not about Squiggly and it's a really important time, I think, for me and my mental health.  So, asking Sarah to help me protect that time would be one way that she could help me with my work and life fit.

Sarah Ellis: So, in at number two, one-to-ones.  I really like the range of topics that we're talking about today, because we go from really big, zoomed-out things, like work/life fit, to something really zoomed in and very specific, which is one-to-ones.  So, a coach-yourself question here is, "What one change could you make to your one-to-one to make them better for the future?"  I also think this is a really great question to ask your manager, so what's the one change that they think that you could make to make those one-to-ones work better, because those one-to-ones are two ways; it's about you and your manager. 

So, maybe just thinking a bit about what would you change, but also asking what would they change. The idea for action here is to set your agenda.  What we know from brilliant people, like Priya Parker, who's been on the podcast before, is that the best reasons to get together, so she talks about the idea of "gatherings", but the best meetings, the best conversations always have a clear purpose.  And it's also the most common reason that we get frustrated, or things feel like a waste of time or not a good use of our time.  So just thinking about, have you got a clear format for your one-to-one?  That might be something that you agree individually with your manager, or it could be something that as a team, you have a format that you all try out together. 

The ins and outs of what you talk about might be different, but you all have a framework that you're trying out to see, "Does this work for all of us?" For example, one of the things that we've been trying as a team really recently, only over the past I would say month or so, is an agenda that starts with something called "focus finder", which is where we all share basically one priority for a week, like what's absolutely top of the list.  It's quite a good way to start because it makes you do some trade-offs, it makes you be selective.  Then we talk about commitments for either clients, or maybe for collaborators, so anything that we know we need to deliver on.  Then we have red flags and sometimes even recurring red flags, and those red flags could be anything like, "I'm feeling overwhelmed and I need some support", or it could be a red flag, "I've spotted there's a potential issue here that we need to resolve"; and then looking-ahead list.

So, the focus finder, commitments, red flag is all quite here and now.  Looking ahead just encourages all of us in our team conversations and our one-to-one conversations to look that bit further ahead, just into the next week or the week after to say, "Just be mindful.  We know we've got this coming" or, "It's not far away until we've got this delivery date, so are we working back from that to make sure we deliver everything we need to?" One good extra resource on this is, HBR have just released a new article all about making the most of your one-to-one meetings.  What I liked about the article is the guy who wrote it has researched one-to-ones for years and it's a really substantial amount of people that he's included in his study.  But the advice and the insights are really practical.  I feel like one-to-ones is one of those where if you get the brilliant basics right, you really set yourself up for success, so things like if you're a manager, don't cancel one-to-ones at the last minute; remember it's your one-to-one, it's not your manager's one-to-one; just all of those things that I think sometimes we often need a bit of a reset with one-to-ones, because maybe they drift, or perhaps we started with good intentions and then perhaps now they're not quite what we need them to be.

Helen Tupper: In at number three is our episode on how to stop being a people-pleaser at work, which is something that we know lots of people struggle with at times, and it gets in the way of their growth.  So, the coach-yourself question here for you to reflect on is, "How often do I do something in my day that's just for me?"  And the idea for action to help you, if you feel like people-pleasing might be holding you back, is all around how do you say no nicely?  And there are a few different things that you can experiment with here to find out what feels authentic for you. The first thing would be, when somebody asks a request of you and you feel like people-pleasing might be starting to creep in, instead suggest other people who could help.  Or another thing that you could do is suggest when you could help, if it's not now, so you don't feel like you don't have to give up what else you might be working on in order to give them the support they might be looking for.  Or the third thing that you can do, as part of saying no nicely, is explaining and involving people in your priorities, so the trade-offs that you might have to make to be able to take on the thing that they might want you to do.  And the way that we recommend doing this is using "if, then". For example, if Sarah said, "Helen, I'd really appreciate it if you could help me by writing this article", I might, if I was in people-pleasing mode, just say, "Yeah, of course, no problem".  But actually, if that was going to put a pressure on me and my workload, it would be more effective if I said to Sarah, "Okay, I would like to help.  There are these other things that I'm working on at the moment", and I might explain what they are and then say to Sarah, "so if I helped you to write that article, then we would need to move that deadline back", and then, "What is the decision we want to make?" so you make it more collective, rather than just taking lots of other people's priorities into your workload.

Sarah Ellis: In at number four is exploring progression possibilities.  The coach-yourself question here is, "What would I like to be true about my Squiggly Career in 12 months' time that isn't true today?"  And our idea for action is a tool to try out that we describe as "scanning".  So, the way that scanning works is that you are using job descriptions as data for your development.  And I'd recommend that you find five jobs that you're just really curious about.  You're not applying for these roles, you've not got to worry about whether you've got any of the skills or the experiences to actually do these jobs, we're just borrowing the job descriptions for a while. So, take these job descriptions, challenge yourself to go far and wide; this is not a time to stay in your lane, this is a time to go, "I wonder what would happen if I worked in this kind of company or that kind of industry" or, "I've always been fascinated or just intrigued by what happens in hospitals or what it would be like to work in a school", whatever it might be.  And once you've got all those job descriptions, do some highlighting, circling, underlining of the words and statements that stand out to you. Often, when you get these job descriptions, it won't be everything in the job description that appeals to you. 

Maybe there was a certain paragraph; maybe you spot that the same word comes up four or five times.  And I think the more you do this, and we've both done this loads of times over the years and we keep doing this because we often use this exercise in our workshops, so I'm always looking for new jobs.  I just go, "I'll just spend five minutes and see what new jobs are there".  And I think what's so useful about it is, it gives you clues and reinforces the more self-awareness you have, what your must-haves are, wherever your career takes you. So, in the context of all the uncertainty and change that we have, there aren't many constants, there aren't many things that we can keep coming back to.  We've described it before as your career criteria.  So for example, every time I do this, it doesn't matter what job I look at, it's never careers that is the consistent theme, it's always ideas, it's always creating.  There's always words like, "starting from scratch", so I just know that that's top of my must-haves.  Whatever I do, wherever I go in my Squiggly Career, that's really, really important to me. As a small side benefit, I do think doing this exercise increases your confidence that we all have transferable talents.  So, even though you're not applying for those roles, you'll think, "One of my strengths is, I'm brilliant at building relationships with lots of different people, and you'll start to see that skill is something that pops up in lots of different roles, in lots of different places.  And I think it just reminds us that we've all got loads of potential and we've got lots of options and opportunities, and we can't help but get a bit blinkered and almost get very focused on what we do today.  So, I think it just expands your horizons and builds your belief a bit as well.

Helen Tupper: In at number five is all about how to be a good manager.  A coach-yourself question for you to reflect on here is, "How have I helped someone else succeed in their career?" and I think this is a really important question, because even though the episode was on how to be a good manager, I still think there's a lot that you can learn from management that you can use even if you're not a manager.  And the idea for action builds on this because it's all about being a strengths spotter and a strengths sponsor. So, strengths spotting is where you proactively identify something that you think someone else does well and you let them know about it.  So, I might say to Sarah, "Sarah, one of the things that I think you do brilliantly is give clear and specific feedback that helps people to improve".  So, that would be me telling Sarah about a strength that she might not be aware of in herself.  And then once you've done some strength spotting, you can do some strength sponsoring, which is where you make sure that other people are aware of those strengths that you see in that person. So, I might talk Sarah up, for example, in conversations where people are discussing people's talents, or discussing other opportunities, and I would effectively be a positive reinforcer of what Sarah does well in that situation or conversation that she's not in.  And these are things that are brilliant for you to do as a manager, because you'll increase someone's opportunities and the awareness that other people have about the work they do well; but you don't just have to be a manager to be a strengths spotter and a strength sponsor, we can all do that for each other.

Sarah Ellis: And we do have, from earlier this year, a really good, simple resource on what being a strength spotter sounds like, so we'll make sure that's in the PodSheet, because I know that was really popular, but I also appreciate you might have missed it along the way, and I found that really helpful; you know, those resources that you keep recommending and coming back to.  I think that's often a clue that they are useful and I think it's a really simple thing that we could all do a lot more of in 2023. So, in at number six is assertiveness, and your coach-yourself question here is, "When do I want to be more assertive at work?"  So, is it with a particular person, a particular meeting, a particular project?  Usually I think when we're thinking about assertiveness, we don't want to think general or in a vague way, because that often doesn't help us; whereas when we start to think about, "When are those moments when I'm not as assertive as I would like to be?"  Our idea for action here is about assertiveness shortcuts. So often, I think, when we want to be more assertive, we're often put in the spot in some way; maybe someone asks us a question we hadn't anticipated, and it is often that; maybe we just feel a bit intimidated by someone, or someone is just very different to us, and we lose that sense of confidence and clarity that we're aiming for.  And the mistake that we might make in thinking about how we resolve that is thinking, "I just need to prepare more". 

That's the standard response to, "I get really nervous when I'm put on the spot and I lose assertiveness.  I just need to do more work beforehand".  But that feels really unrealistic, I think, to practise so that we are perfect every time, and we don't always have that luxury of being able to be so prepared that we'll know everything.  I'm not sure that it's that useful as a goal to set ourselves. Instead, I think what's much more helpful is thinking about, when you do get put on the spot or in those moments where you don't feel as assertive as you would like to, what are some of the shortcuts in terms of how you could respond, because any shortcuts are really helpful for our brain; it gives us a bit of a default behaviour to fall back on when we might be panicking a little bit, when you're having that moment of being like, "What do I do now; what do I say now?"  And if you can just practise some of these shortcuts, I have certainly found them really helpful. So, let's imagine now I'm in a meeting and Helen has asked me a question and I just think, "I don't know the answer to that", or maybe I start to answer and then you lose your way halfway through and you're like, "Oh no, I don't sound very authoritative now".  And I think just thinking about in that moment, what would you maybe do differently?

Firstly, if someone asks you a question and you don't know the answer, it is always okay to say that you don't know the answer, but you might want to go a bit further than that, especially if you're trying to be more assertive.  So, you might want to do something like say, "That's a really useful question, thank you", thank someone for the question, and then actually try and involve, rather than solve, so involve everybody in that meeting, "Has anyone got any experience of how that might work that they could share with me, like help me understand a bit more about what that would look and feel like?" and that might be that person who's asked you that question or it could be someone else.  You don't have to feel like, you know, when we get put on the spot, I think it feels like the spotlight is on us.  I think there, think about how you could share the spotlight with other people, so that's one shortcut technique.

One thing that I've definitely done before is summarise back to someone what they've heard, really because I am slightly playing for time and I think that is okay.  So, maybe someone's talked to you about something or they've described something and you're maybe a bit stuck or you're a bit unsure; it can be useful to just say, "That's so interesting, Helen.  So, just to check that I'm understanding your suggestion properly, you're saying that we could do [X and Y]  Am I missing anything?" or, "What have I missed there?" or, "Is there anything else that you think is important for me to consider?"  Just by doing that quick summary back and then asking a question back, again it starts to feel more conversational in that moment, rather than feeling like something that could feel a bit more like a question, answer, bordering on more of that interview pressure moment. So I think figure out for you, what could some of those assertiveness shortcuts look like, but that don't always mean you need to prepare more.

Helen Tupper: I really like the summarising back; it's definitely one that I use and feels quite a natural way of me having that assertiveness in that situation as well. So, in at number seven, building on what Sarah was talking about there with questions, is how to ask better questions at work.  The coach-yourself question, on asking better questions, it will all make sense, everyone, I promise, is, "What kind of questions am I naturally good at asking?"  So for example, Sarah is brilliant at asking "why" questions that really make us consider the bigger picture of why we are doing things; and I am naturally more good at asking "how" questions like, "How could we make this happen?  How could we move this forward?"  Those sorts of questions take us more into the detail of doing, so it naturally plays to our strengths.  It's also quite helpful that we all work on one project together and both come at it with different questions.

But the idea for action here is to really start to develop your question range because there are some different types of questions that you can ask, and the more able you are to identify what question type to use when, the better able you are to understand different situations and come up with different solutions.  So, here are four different questions for you to develop in your question range. The first is zoom-out questions, so one that makes you consider the bigger picture.  That might sound something like, "How does this relate to our team objectives?"  So let's say I've dived into the detail, Sarah might help me zoom out by thinking about something a bit bigger, our team objectives.  The second question is an adjoining question.  This is where you join the dots between some different things you are discussing.  So, let's say I'm talking about starting a new project; an adjoining question that Sarah might ask me would be, "What would the impact of doing that project be on the marketing team or the finance team?" so that you can see things other than just the person who might be working on that project. The third type of question is an unlocking question.  This is really good if you're going round in circles or getting a bit stuck, and it's where you use a question to bring in a new bit of insight or a new bit of information.  So this might sound like, "How would our competitor" or a different department or a different function, "How would X approach this situation?" and it really helps you just consider things from a different perspective. The fourth question that can help you to develop your questioning range is a constraint question.  This is really good when it feels like it's impossible to move forward; your budget's been cut, the deadline's been moved forward, and this question is a, "How might we…?" because often you can get stuck in the, "It won't work, it's not possible", and the, "How might we [or] how could it…?" can help you to get unstuck from those more difficult situations.

Sarah Ellis: So, in at number eight is how to negotiate for what you need.  The coach-yourself question here is, "What skills do I already have that will support me to negotiate for what I need?"  For example here, I think often we think we haven't got the skills to negotiate because we look at negotiation as a skill and we just think, "I'm just not good at that"; whereas, if you start to break it down a bit, if you're empathetic, you're really good at putting yourself in other people's shoes.  That's useful for negotiation.  If you're imaginative, you'll be good at scenario planning.  That's really useful for negotiation. That's why I just want everybody to -- I think everybody is better at negotiation than they give themselves credit for.  But perhaps we have some maybe slightly dated or ladderlike views of, "What does brilliant negotiation look like?" and it feeling very aggressive and quite win/lose.  But I think if you start to connect the dots between the skills you've got and then how could they be useful for negotiation, I bet everybody listening is better than they give themselves credit for. The idea for action here is called "no-go, good, better, best".  Before starting any negotiation, I think it's really helpful to know what's your no-go, what's good, what's better and what are your best outcomes. 

So, this is essentially doing a bit of scenario-planning before you even start.  I think by writing them down, so not just thinking about what they might be, but writing them down, it means that you don't lose your way if conversations become difficult or emotional, or if you get new information or alternatives.  It doesn't mean that you're not open to those, but they're a useful reminder to keep coming back to to think, "Okay, now that I've got this new information, what does that mean in terms of my no-go or my good?  Where am I at the moment in terms of this scale?" Maybe it feels like you are letting go of one thing, but it feels okay, because you're still getting a lot of what was in your better option.  But letting go of things can feel hard, so I think by having these things ready to go, it helps you to stay with what matters most to you, what's most important to you.  And also, just as a reminder, the most effective negotiations are typically not win/lose; the best ones are where everybody feels like they've got to a good outcome, where they feel win/win. Actually, I was talking to a really interesting partner that we work with the other week, and they were saying to me that they have a really clear principle in terms of how they work with partners, that whenever they may be talking about contracts, a really classic area where you might negotiate, they are very clear that they want everybody to feel like they have got to a really good resolution as part of that process, and they really care about that and just how important that is, which I thought was really refreshing.  So, just have those scenarios ready to go and I think it will just set you up for success.

Helen Tupper: In at number nine is how to manage your monkeys, which might feel like a very strange topic, but monkeys are effectively the tasks that you need to do and the issue very often is that the tasks that you need to do can feel a bit overwhelming, because you find yourself taking on other people's tasks, or creating lots more for yourself too.  So, the coach-yourself question here to help you manage your monkeys is, "How often do I feel like my to-do list is being controlled by someone else?" The idea for action to help you is to think about how you can support, but not adopt the monkey.  So, let's imagine Sarah came to me and said, "Helen, we need to sort the website out?"  I mean, Sarah's very likely to say something like that to me! 

I might be like, "Okay, that is a monkey, effectively" and I'd be like, "Right, okay, I'll put a plan together and I'll come to talk to you".  My initial response might be to take that monkey on, because Sarah's identified it.  Sarah might not really have meant for me to take the monkey, but I might just adopt it very quickly. Instead, what would be more effective is for me to maybe get curious, so that would be almost before committing, get curious, "Okay, what do you mean; what's the priority; when would that need to be done by?" ask some questions so I can get a little bit more data, understand a little bit more about what might be driving that point from Sarah.  And then, once I've got that information, I could then say to Sarah, "Okay, how could I help you to move that forward?"  So, I'm not trying to say, "Off you go" and leave Sarah with it alone; I'm trying to be supportive but I'm also, quite assertively, not taking that monkey on for myself.  That is often, because you've got the information, you're more aware of what's going on, but you can also just be a little bit controlled about how you respond to it as well.

Sarah Ellis: And as somebody who does this quite a lot, my observation is it will probably slow things down, so taking this approach does slow things down.  If you are someone who adopts lots of monkeys at the moment, probably because you're trying to be helpful, often with really good positive intent, but then you become a bottleneck and your to-do lists get really long, it is quite useful I think to remind yourself, in the moment it will feel hard, because you'll probably think, "Well, I could fix this fast.  By just doing this, I can get this sorted", so it will feel slower and maybe in the moment, slightly more frustrating. But in the medium term and quite quickly, it will save you time, but also you are helping other people to help themselves as well.  So, I always remind myself of that.  Often, when I'm offering support, but equally not adopting that monkey, it often doesn't feel great in that very specific moment, but we have to live with that because we know it's worth it.

Our final one, in at number ten, is when to lead and when to follow.  The coach-yourself question here is, "What's one project I'm working on where it's helpful for me to follow; and what's one project I'm working on when it's helpful for me to lead?" so again, just being really clear about when you might want to move modes; following versus leading.  And the idea for action here is leading versus following skill spikes. So, to help you to move those modes to adapt and have the agility that we all need to have, I think, regardless of what job we do, we all spend some time leading and some time following, I think it's helpful to know, what are the different skills that you want to spike in when you're leading versus following, because your skills are your behaviours should look and feel different when you're in those different modes. This will obviously be unique to you and the skills that you bring, but just to give you a few examples.  In leading mode, a skill spike could be, "I'm going to take the role of summarising actions and outcomes at the end of a meeting", so the skill might be summarising.  Or, another leading skill might be listening, so you might think, "In this project where I'm in leader mode, I'm going to really increase my listening versus talking ratio, because I see my job as a leader here to facilitate the discussion, not to dominate the discussion", for example. In follower mode, a skill spike might be increasing your curiosity, or your time spent borrowing brilliance from other places because you want to add more ideas into discussions; you see that as part of your role in follower mode in that project is to bring thoughts and, "This could be interesting [or] what about this?" so you might be more in creator mode.

Helen Tupper: So, we hope you have found that quite quickfire ten different ideas for action, linked to our top ten podcasts, useful and helpful.  We know there's quite a lot of information there, so as we said, we will summarise it in the PodSheet for you, we'll do an asset that can go on social, which is normally our PodSummary, so you can swipe through this stuff, so there's lots of ways that you'll be able to reflect on it after you've listened and take action.  But hopefully it's a little bit of a build, particularly if you're a regular listener as well, it might take you back to some of the episodes that you've heard before.

Sarah Ellis: Thank you to everybody who continues to support Squiggly, you recommend us, you write reviews, and you just get in touch with us and let us know what's working and give us ideas for other topics, which we always really appreciate.  We hope you've had a good year and we're so excited for where your Squiggly Careers are going to take you in 2023.  We'll be back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.