In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about middle management. Many of us don’t like to think of ourselves this way but if you’re responsible for managing up and down, you’re likely a middle manager. My guest this week is Jeff Sigel, author of the book The Middle Matters, a Toolkit for Middle Managers. Jeff argues that middle managers are actually doing three roles at once – doing, leading and influencing. But they’re not often given proper guidance on how to effectively perform and balance these roles. Here we talk about the challenges facing middle managers and what you can do to become a more confident, effective leader.
About My Guest
Jeff Sigel is a Strategy, Business Intelligence and Marketing leader with over 20 years of experience across the Food Manufacturing, Grocery Retail, and Restaurant industries. His focus is on helping companies go beyond PowerPoint strategies, ensuring that there is alignment between strategic planning, brand building, analytics, and leadership behaviors at every level. Jeff is particularly passionate about helping middle leaders learn the skills they need to deliver results, build engaged teams, and realize bold visions for the future.
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Website: www.proprioceptive.io/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@TwinningStrategy
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Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, Jeff, I am really excited for our conversation today. And I would love to start by inviting you to introduce yourself.
Jeff Sigel
Well, thank you. And thank you, Kim for having me. So, I'm Jeff Sigel. I have spent most of my career as a food marketer. And, and then it sort of later in my career became sort of more of a strategy guy, and so forth, at companies like disco, and Hershey and Cracker Barrel, and so forth. And but all the while I was doing that, I really became super interested in the topic of management and leadership and coaching people and how to help people kind of become great in their roles, particularly in the middle, where it is where most of us spend most of our careers. And so, so I have sort of shifted gears in the last year, to be more of a business coach, leadership coach, and also about to be an author. So I have a book coming out very, very, very soon called the middle matters, a toolkit for middle managers. So that's, that's me in a nutshell.
Kim Meninger
I love it. And I just have to say, as an aside, I had so much impostor syndrome when I was working in corporate because I didn't understand the technology. And I just wonder what my career would have been. Not that, not that the work isn't hard, but like when I used to think, oh, would it be so much better if we sold chocolate? Food. I didn't understand chocolate and crackers, I couldn't understand software and hardware.
Jeff Sigel
You know, it's not easy, because I feel like no matter what you work on, there's always some level of nuance and technicality that you just had never thought about. But there are a lot of things that are really fun about selling chocolate, I can't I can't compete. I think my kid's favorite title that I've ever had was when I was the director of Twizzlers and Jolly Ranchers. So that's a pretty cool thing to have on your business card. Absolutely.
Kim Meninger
I love it. And I want to hear more about what brought you to a place where you wanted to write about middle managers, because I think, you know, we sort of those of us who have been in that role. And you know, we see a lot of conversation around the challenges. They're about like what, what drew you to thinking this is a problem, I really want to do a deeper dive into.
Jeff Sigel
So I'll start the answer that question is a little bit on a personal note, which was that during the pandemic, when everyone else was making sourdough and quilting, I started writing slowly became really interested in writing and was writing some fiction. And, you know, we won't go into that but, but about a, about a little over a year ago, when it was still in my corporate role at Cracker Barrel, I was kind of like the go-to non HR guy that got invited to, you know, the, the trainings that they would do for middle managers, basically, within the company to talk about things like building trust with your team, or how to apply sort of strat, strategic thinking on a day-to-day basis, or whatever. And so, I was doing that. And it was really interesting when I would do those trainings, to sort of talk to people and realize that a lot of the time, people feel lost in this middle manager role. In fact, many people are sort of like, like me, you know, sort of became a middle manager because you were good doer, you were good at doing something and suddenly, you were promoted. And now that you're a, you know, now you're a manager of people, but nobody really gave you any kind of instruction manual of how, how to do it. And it's really interesting, because a lot of I mean, there's lots of things that you have to learn in order to be a great leader, and so forth. But there are a lot, there are a lot of things that are actually really just sort of just things that if you just knew you would know, you don't really need to spend a lot of time like for, for me, the biggest one I always said was when I was giving these trains is that if you take nothing away from this training, the most important thing I want you to remember is that your one on ones with your direct reports are the most important meetings you have in the week, because that's how you create a connection with your people and connect them to strategy and the why we're doing what we're doing and so forth, which is a really just, I mean, sort of maybe, I don't know, might sound sort of obvious to some people, but it actually turns out to be not that obvious, but it's one of those little things that if you just tell somebody that oh, and I can't tell you how many times people after the, you know, the presentations would be like, Oh, I set up meetings with my, you know, my direct report after, after, after your presentation, like Oh, good, you know, and so there's a there's a lot of little things like that, that I feel like are just if people just knew and so in some ways, I was almost writing the book that I wish I had had, you know, back when I became a middle manager for the first time. And so, you know, there's a, there's a whole structure to this book that's really built around this really fundamental idea that the middle manager role is complicated because it's really three roles and one, that the middle manager is a doer, a leader and an influencer all at once. And that once you start to understand that you have these three roles, there are just some very basic skills that you can learn that help you, you know, be a good doer, which is really about managing up and building and building your credibility with your boss, being a leader, which is a really about how you manage your team and how you get the most out of them. So about building capacity, and then influencing is about how you work with the people sort of that are at your same level your peers, or the people above you that don't report to you, and how do you get commitment from those folks to your ideas. And so really, that was what I was thinking of, as I sort of started to write this book was, hey, there's all these people that are you know, that I've been, you know, in these training classes with, or whatever that really seem to be hungry for some just basic understanding. And if I can just help them have a better framework and give them some basic tools, sort of a toolkit, if you will, that that will allow them to just be better at their roles and better understand what it is they're trying to do.
Kim Meninger
I love that you lay out the three different roles because I think it's really easy for people to maybe focus on one or two, maybe, but usually not all, and especially if you're not given proper direction. And like you said earlier, a lot of people are promoted, because they're really good individual contributors. So they're probably really good at the doing part. Not necessarily the influencing part, and in particular, and so where do you think middle managers struggle most when it comes to those three roles? Or does it depend on the person?
Jeff Sigel
You know, it's, it's a really good question, it probably does depend on the person a little bit. But I think the first place that people struggle with when they go from being a doer, doing accounting, or marketing or software engineering, or whatever, to being a leader, is this incredibly important mindset shift, where they start to understand the work of their job is to lead once they have people that work for them. And so often what you have actually, I was talking to somebody recently, he was telling me the story, this woman that used to work for him had called him up and said, hey, you know, I, she's now in a new role and a new company, and she had said, this, this person, she said, You know, I really love my new job, I just don't you know, I just don't love the people stuff. And the people stuff is your job. And yes, this is really interesting thing that happens when you become a leader is you are so used to doing that you feel like doing is the only work I was the analogy I like to use this is a little bit like saying, Well, an air traffic controller isn't doing anything, because they're not this is really interesting thing, by the way, that happens in the restaurant industry. And, you know, I've never been a restaurant manager, but I have been, you know, worked at Cracker Barrel for many years. And, you know, so it was around a lot of restaurant managers, and one of the things you hear about is this tendency for restaurant managers when the, when things are getting crazy and chaotic, and you know, you know, there's the, the kitchen is slammed, and whatever the natural inclination for the, for the manager is to jump on the grill, right? Because if I if at least I'm doing something, I'm getting to step down and whatever, except that when you've jumped on the grill in a restaurant, you have given up all situational awareness, you can't you basically now, the only thing you can do is put more burgers, you can't tell the hostess to see the tables at a different pace. You can't tell the server's to script something different, you've lost all the ability to control and so that I think is to me the biggest challenge that I think people run into when they go from being a doer, you know, into a man you know, middle management role where they're now leading people is this natural inclination to keep doing and, and not recognize that the leading is actually their job, that, that giving people feedback that helping them become better at their jobs, like coaching people, those are real work. They don't feel like work. His work is you know, flipping the burgers on the grill or whatever it is. So that to me is you know, so the big thing that I think people really struggle with.
Kim Meninger
I can completely agree with you, I see that a lot too. I think people feel like they're well, especially high achievers who measure their success in very tactical ways, right? It's like, I'm, I've gotten this thing done, and I'm an expert at this particular task. And so when you now have to get things done through other people, there is that anxiety that comes with am I doing enough? And how am I measuring my success? And I've had this conversation with a number of my own clients who have transitioned into higher-level leadership roles. And they will say things to me, like, I used to be really good at x, or I used to know everything about why, right, have to talk about like, you need new metrics, right? You cannot measure your success by the old ways of doing things.
Jeff Sigel
Right. Well, it's interesting that you say that because I would say for me, when I feel like I really started to become a better leader was when I started to manage functions that I knew nothing about. Because I think when you are managing a function that you were like, I used to be really good at that, that sort of pull to get right back in the fray and do it because that's what you're comfortable with, I know how to do it. And also you're looking at people who are junior, and we're still learning and whatever, and you're saying I could do it better than they can. And you know, that kind of thing is you tend to leap in and start to try and do and doing it, you know, I'm guessing you've read this book, but you can let me know if you know, there's a book called multipliers, Wiseman, and she has this amazing analogy for that. She talks about multipliers, people who get a lot out of their teams, she talks about diminishers people who sort of don't give up don't get very much other Tina, she has this amazing analogy that she uses for the diminisher, which is one brain, many hands. And I have always felt like that was just this incredible. Like, that is exactly the problem that happens when people are sort of trying to lead by doing through others as a put, you know, I'm trying to basically, I call it a marionette, the hands all these other people that are around me, as opposed to actually sort of leading, which is really about how do I get all? How do I really tap into all these brains that I have? How do I get them to really think and, and do and there's it's, it's, it's a it's a tough thing, right to, to, because it's a leap of faith, right? You have to actually give up and be willing to let things not be perfect the way you could do them, so that your team can actually elevate up. And it's this sort of counterintuitive thing of where you kind of go if I if I do it, it's going to get better, or it's going to be better. And that is actually backwards. I'm sure you've seen this, right? When, when you when the leader is doing or intervening too much. The team literally just throws up their hands and says, I can never get this right. Every time I bring it to you it's wrong. So you know what I'm going to do, I'm just going to bring you crap and let you go ahead, knock yourself out, redo it, and I'll just, why won't Why should I spend 10 hours making it perfect if you're just going to redo it? And the problem is that the team never learns when you, when you, when you aren't in there when you aren't there coaching them as opposed to trying to do for them.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, like that concept of learned helplessness comes to mind when you say that just become dependent on you. Because you know, you're going to do it, you're going to do it better, better, quote-unquote, right? And so there's no point in even figuring out how to do it or investing the time.
Jeff Sigel
Right. And it's so fascinating because I run into a lot of people whose I'm sure you do as well. A lot of times people their biggest concern with their own boss is that their boss is a micromanager. Right, you hear about this a lot. And I basically be interested in your reaction to how you handle those situations. But I often tell people like the way to deal with a micromanager is actually to lean into the problem. I call it feeding the beast, right? Like if they want all that detail, give them all that detail until they basically say nope, back off. You got this right because, because, you know fundamentaly is an interesting thing. Like why is somebody a micromanager? They're a micromanager because they feel insecure. That's right. They feel insecure about themselves, being able to deliver what they need to do. So they try to get involved in everything you're doing because anything you do is going to reflect badly on me and it's not until you sort of go no wait a second. My job here is to actually get the most out of this team to build its capacity and, and, and, and move past that sense of oh my gosh, what's this gonna look like to me that you really start to get a look at all my team can accomplish?
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and what you made me think of too is what if you're the micromanager right like you don't know maybe that's to start because we're all quick to identify the micromanagers that we've had, but do we recognize it in ourselves? And I think that's really important.
Jeff Sigel
Yeah. I mean, it's funny you say that to this. So I, you know, mentioned that I am about to, you have this book out in the world, and literally the first story and the preface of the book is a story about me as a micromanager. It's, my first ever direct report was a great guy, whatever. And I, you know, I started to become a manager, but he, you know, in his view, ready to be promoted. I'm sitting here thinking, Oh, my gosh, I've got this great opportunity to mold and shape this person. And he's this person, like my eyes you. And, and, you know, he comes into my office one day with this, you know, like, spreadsheet, budget, spreadsheet, or whatever, and all these numbers on it. And they're not like ticking and tying the way I want them to. And I'm like, What is going on here? These don't tick and tie. And He literally says to me, is this really the most important thing we could be doing? And not to my credit, I mean, this was, you know, sort of a bad managerial moment, I basically said, No, it's not. But if you got it right, we wouldn't have to do that. And it really was the moment that he sort of was walking into my office kind of shaking his head going, Oh, my God, this crazy boss that I have, like, I was like, Wait a second, I think I'm doing this wrong, like, I'm focused on how he can do for me. Whereas what I really should be focusing on is how I can elevate him that was, but again, it comes back to that point of going no, I literally was going from being a doer, I've only been I never had a direct report of any kind in any role that I never had. I had moved up. And so now here I am leading. And I'm not understanding that my job is no different. Right? It's how do I lead? How do I coach? Not? How do I do through other people?
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and that, and that is something that a lot of people are not formally transitioned into. Right? There's sort of this assumption that Oh, you'll figure it out.
Jeff Sigel
Exactly. And I think, you know, it's interesting because I've actually had a lot of conversations over the last couple of months with Pete with HR people about why that happened. So why that companies essentially put people in these leadership positions, because they were great at doing something they make them a leader, and then they, they're like, good luck. And why did they do it? And so it actually turns out to be, there's a couple of things going on there. One is, a lot of companies do give some kind of training on being a new manager, but it's sort of like when you're a new anything, like you get training. At the very beginning, the first time, you've never done it before, and whatever, that in some ways, the training is not that valuable, because you don't understand. It's like, it's so theoretical, I don't know what to do with this. Right. So that's, that's the first thing. The second thing that's really interesting is, is actually a an economic issue, which is in a large company, at least, you often have so many middle managers, that is just too expensive to train them. And so they so companies end up not training them. And, you know, sort of one, it's interesting, what, there's an interesting question of is that actually the right, you know, you know, way of thinking about it, because there may be a very high ROI on actually training your, your leaders to get the most out of their team. And so, but so they don't train them. And then what happens is, I don't know, you probably have seen this, there's all these articles coming out now about how companies are getting rid of their middle layer, and so forth. And I think what happens, what's happening is, senior leaders look at their middle name managers, and the middle managers are just doing and they go, Well, if my middle managers are doing, I don't need them, I could pay somebody for the next level down at a lower rate, and not have that middle manager. And it's, it's literally the 180-degree wrong reaction to the situation because the right reaction would be to say, oh, something's wrong. My middle managers don't know how to get the most out of their team. I need to give them training, not a workshop, but ongoing reinforcement of this is how you lead here's how you get the most out of your team. And, and so it's, you know, it's but instead they look at it and the guy don't need these people and so they get rid of them, which, you know, happens I feel like, you know, first of all, like getting rid of middle managers. I mean, like, I feel like that's happened about, you know, four times over the course of my career where some company is like, Oh, we're gonna get rid of that. And it was one company got rid of the director or some other company got rid of. There was one company where they're like, Yep, no, no, nobody who has direct reports can have fewer than six, you know, it's like, you're gonna flatten the organization. And you It's interesting never works.
Kim Meninger
Nope, it never worked out. You're absolutely right.
Jeff Sigel
Yeah, bringing people, they ended up the well, the middle layer like sort of grows back, right, because you have to have a middle layer, I mean, one thing, you have to have a middle layer because people have to have a path to get to the upper layer.
Kim Meninger
You can’t go from individual contributor to VP, right?
Jeff Sigel
Right. And so then, these companies are like, oh, there's nobody internally who has the skills to be at the higher level. So we have to go out and hire people from the outside. And then you start to lose things like the organization doesn't really understand, you know, what it's about anymore, and the history is lost, and all those kinds of things, because they're so busy trying to get rid of this layer and not fix, not get to the root of the problem, which is the middle layer is fundamental to getting the most out of the out of the business. Those people are the people that are the conduit, from senior leadership to the rank and file to make sure that the strategy and you know, on all the big ideas or whatever actually getting through otherwise, what you end up with is a bunch of people just doing stuff at the, you know, at the, at the sort of functional level, there's doing stuff, and it drifts, it becomes really disconnected.
Kim Meninger
That's such a good point. And I want to go back to something that you said earlier, too, because I think this is really interesting, but also an area where people have a lot of self-doubt. And you had said that you actually found it better to lead functions that you didn't know anything about. Because of that, it removes that temptation to jump in. But I think there are so many people who feel like, I can't lead a team, if there are people on it who are smarter and more experienced than I am.
Jeff Sigel
Yeah, there's that like that fear factor, right? Or the fear factor of like, well, if so, so it's interesting, I'm gonna, I'm going to take a slight aside, I'll come back to your question, which is a. So I believe that when you are really great leader, you train your team to function without you that the best leaders are like, literally their team can function. And even if they weren't there, right, I had a great leader that worked for me, in my last company who just went on, went on a really long vacation, because her son was in the military and was home from Asia or whatever. And it was like, we're in the middle, like, sort of like a crisis moment, and her team did not fall apart, they were totally on top of it, it was fine. We were all good. I probably have a little bit of like anxiety, but we got through it. And they were able to do it. And when she came back, I said, you know, that's a sign of a great leader when you go away and things don't fall apart. And but I think, you know, what happens is that people become really uncomfortable with that. To go back to your question is, I'm really uncomfortable with the idea that I'm going to train people to do my job, because then what do I do? Right? Right. And so you're this fear of if I'm not doing if I don't mind how my hands in hate things. And I'm not interfering by not making things better than what is my job? And the answer is your job is to make sure that there is a culture that is supportive of people's learning and growth, right? Your job is to coach people to help them become better at doing what they do. If you have people, leaders reporting to you, it's to talk about the people that work for your people and have a conversation, like how do you elevate them? How do you get these the leaders that that reporting to you to be great leaders? It's, it's also about spending your time, you know, clearing away obstacles, making it easier for your people to do the job. I'm doing all the influencing work that we really, we haven't talked about yet of how do I get, you know, more resources for my department? Or how do I take some big idea that I have that nobody else has been able to do for, you know, sometimes decades, and basically say, I think I think I want to take this on. And if you, if you elevate yourself, you know, because your team is great. You actually have time to do all those things. And that's when the really cool stuff starts to happen. And so back to your, your question was about, you know, people feeling like, oh, well, there's somebody you know, somebody smarter than me or whatever. It's like, that's awesome because they are the people that are going to free up your time to do the things that are going to make your team even more impactful and more powerful. And that's how, you know just if you're thinking about in terms of your own career growth, that's how you grow in your career is not by being really great at you know, marry and adding people to do all things that they Do but creating a team that can function with, you know, even when you're not there, so that you can do bigger and better things, you can take that team to the next level, you can base it, I mean, this is how you sort of funny, like, you know, in my career, it's like I often would pick up like functions in my, in my area because I was known for basically fixing problems, right. And so I would end up with somebody would give me I don't know, like at one point like I had, you know, it was the marketing guy and I had, you know, home office facilities was put under me, or, or guest relations was put under Vir, oh, or I started to build a data analytics function or whatever, because I, you know, I suddenly, you know, I had the capacity to do it, not because I was able to do so much, but because I was able to get so much out of a team. And that's where I say, you know, back to your, you're getting back to your question is about how that happened? Well, the more I had people under me, who knew more than I did about what they did, the less I was likely to get sucked into those weeds. And the more I stayed at that higher level.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and I think that is such an important point, because I go back to you're flipping burgers, and now you're flipping burgers, you're not thinking bigger picture, right? You're not having you're building those relationships, you're not thinking more strategically. And that's the opportunity. And I think, if you're thinking about it as either I'm adding value through doing or I'm not doing anything at all, and you're always going to be feeling like you're not, you know, earning your keep or, as opposed to looking at it as no, actually, there are all these other things that my team can't do, that I can be doing, if they if I can get out of their way and, and take the obstacles out of their way.
Jeff Sigel
It's a mindset shift. Yeah, and it's but it is, it is, it is a huge mindset shift and sort of goes back to the point about that's the that's why that's the hardest piece of going moving into that middle leader role is, you know, people get into that role. And they are profoundly uncomfortable because they haven't been trained to do the role. And they don't understand it. And they feel like they are becoming irrelevant if they, you know, make the team great, if you will. And so they feel like, they feel like they have to stay involved. And I actually think, you know, I don't know if you've run into this, but when it's taken to its extreme, you will sometimes even find people who essentially, somebody recently referred to me is referred to it to me as catastrophize. That is they almost create crises because it's the only like, I'm good in a crisis. That's how I got, you know, be leader. And so I created a crisis, you know, so that I can remain valuable. And then I keep demonstrating how great I am because I'm always saving the day. Right? And the question, the interesting question is, well, what if you didn't have to save the day, you can see the crisis?
Kim Meninger
You prevented the crisis.
Jeff Sigel
Prevented the crisis from happening in the first place, exactly.
Kim Meninger
And so what responsibility or opportunity do you see for senior leadership to better set expectations with middle managers around what their role is? Because I think, you know, I have these conversations as part of coaching calls and presentations that I'm doing. What really, within an organization, this message should be clear and consistent. And I don't think that's happening.
Jeff Sigel
I don't think it is, either. And I think, you know, I think part of the problem is that we have a very, we, we meaning the general, we are very, very narrow view of what leadership is, whether it's the, you know, the middle managers who are leaders for the first time, or the senior leaders, and this very narrow view of like, leadership is I can, you know, I handle crises, well, I'm very decisive, I, you know, get things done, whatever, and all those sorts of things. And part of the problem with that very sort of, you know, sort of decisive dominant leadership model is that it's great in a crisis, by the way that, you know, absolutely tell you do this, you do this, whatever. But what it isn't great at is sort of thinking long term, how do I get more out of the team? How do I create processes that are that that expand people's capacity? How do I get, you know, how do I get my team to just be able to function better, is a different mode of leadership. And I think that's the problem that you run into with often with senior leaders is that they've grown up in a world where that sort of dominant just do what I say decisive kind of leadership is really the most rewarded. And they look at their career and they go, Well, this is what got me here. So this must be right, and to eight, then look at it and go, You know what the people who are sort of down there trying to, you know, build processes or train their people or whatever, that's just a bunch of wasted, that's bluff. That's all the time, I didn't need any of that I just figured it out, they just need to figure it out. And that's, I think the biggest problem we run into and the senior leaders is to get them out of this mode and say, Hey, this is not the only way that you can lead. I will, I will bring in just because I just binge-watched it. And, and like super, you know, over the last couple of weeks is Ted Lasso. I mean, Ted Lasso is amazing, amazing leadership, you know, sort of parable, if you will, because he uses a totally different approach to leadership. But if you look at him, he takes time to get where he's getting, but he gets much further than anyone could get. And so I don't know, maybe we should make Ted Lasso required viewing for this?
Kim Meninger
You're absolutely right. I wish that that were seen as the, you know, sort of profile of good leadership, as opposed to some of the old fashioned old school leaders that we hold to that.
Jeff Sigel
Well, you know, it's funny because it's, it's, it is view, I think the reason people tend to not like that kind of leadership is because it's slow, because they want results immediately, right? I mean, you know, that's just to stick with the TED Lhasa thing, right? is, to me, he, he basically was like, he had a plan, his plan wasn't we're gonna win this game, and then we're gonna win the next game, or whatever his plan was, we're going to make this team better and better and better over time. And it's dabit, that approach to leadership is viewed as very slow. It is. And what's interesting, though, is it actually probably, or I'm saying, actually, it probably is almost definitely faster. Because in the long run, when, when if you just say, actually call it I'm jumping around a metaphor, it's here for saying that I call it green eggs and ham, right? When you say, you know, when you say to somebody, you know, do this, and they come back and it's wrong. And you say, No, that's wrong. But you don't tell them why it's wrong. It's a little bit like saying, Well, do you like it on a plane? No. That's part of that sort of, like, just do it right, you should just get it right. And you should know better and whatever, is, is very unproductive thinking and actually slows down progress. Because the team is actually, they're just guessing. And when you're just guessing you have an end, sometimes you hit and sometimes you miss, you have no way of knowing whether you're actually improving, you're getting better. And so the next week, you ask them to do the same task again, and they're still going to be sort of guessing and trying to figure it out. Whereas if you are methodically trying to elevate them, help them understand help them be better leaders, help them, you know, sort of grow and elevate themselves and do frankly, your job and getting them to think like you when you're not around, then they become really great, then they can become really great leaders. And it might take you know, six months a year, I don't know, two years, whatever it is for them to actually improve. But the green eggs and ham approach, approach, they never improve. They never improve. Yeah, right. They never learn what's the better way.
Kim Meninger
That's exactly right. No, I think that's a really good point. And then if you take that approach to you stifle creativity, people are going to take risks, they're going to be afraid of getting their hand slapped and being told that they're wrong. And so they're gonna play it really safe. And you're never gonna see what's possible. Right?
Jeff Sigel
It's funny you say that because I had a couple of conversations this just this week about that, that very issue of the fact that people will literally stick with the safe approach, even if they don't know, they don't believe that is necessarily the best approach because their feeling is no one ever gets really, you know, disciplined, if you will, or correct, it just did the same thing everyone else was going to do, and it didn't work. So we just sit around and go, I don't know why that didn't work. It should have worked better with for and it's like, well, yeah, but you're, you're basically you're doing the same thing over and over again, with no change in results, which is I don't know what that is. You keep you keep doing that same thing over and over again. But you never, you never sort of change your, your approach is not you know, that doesn't make any sense but it is saved. And, you know, the way we do end-of-year reviews and all that kind of stuff would be like, Yeah, well, I don't know, I don't know why that didn't work. That's too bad. But you did a great job. And you worked really hard. So you know, here have a have a decent rating, you know? Because I'm not, you know, but if you if you really wanted to push yourself, you would have said, Oh, wait a second, what's the real problem? I'm facing? What, what solutions I have available to me? And do I need to try something different? Because if I keep doing the same thing over and over again, a second not gonna change anything.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. And do you think? I mean, I think there's an individual component to this of in, you know, I encourage everyone to read your book, because I'm sure it's a really good kind of blueprint for how to think about this. There's the inner work that we have to do, then there's the context in which we operate. And I would imagine that in some organizations, people will try this out and find my own management team is not allowing me to do, yeah, no needs to be done. And so, you know, how do you know, it's time somewhere else?
Jeff Sigel
You know, what you're talking about is a really good point. And it's something I've been thinking a lot about. And I recently wrote an article about this, I called it an usher, look at the name quite right, I call it radical, extreme, highly effective atomic ownership, mindset. A whole bunch of bucks there. And this idea that what you're talking about is like that, in the end of the day, you do not get to choose who your boss is, you don't really get to choose who you are for, you just get to choose how you will work for them. And that, you know, fundamentally, you have to start from this idea of like, well, what if you? So I think the first question is, if you're in a tough situation, and manager and toxic environment, whatever it is, to ask yourself, What can I do? Like I can't, I always tell people, I think the word should is like the worst word in the English language, because nobody, you can say, Should all you want, but they're not going to do it. Right. So the question is, what are you going to do? How are you going to take charge of the situation and change it? And so this is where you know, like, what are all the ways that you can change? How do you How are you? How can you how can you be a different doer? How can you be a different leader? How can you be an influencer, and really try and change the, the people, not, not change the people around you, but change your circumstances? And that's, that was fundamentally by the way, where the book came from was this idea of this thing that I feel like it took me like, you know, 20, something years to learn, which is, in the end of the day, you get to decide you have to choose, there's always a choice that you can make, and that if the longer you spend thinking about what other people should do, the more you end up in this sort of victim mentality, that doesn't really get you anywhere. Said, I believe that when you come to the conclusion, you've done all that work, and you've tried all those things, and whatever, and you come to the conclusion that you what you should do for you. And the best way to take charge of your situation is to go find some someplace else to work that is a better connect, better for your, you and for your, your workstyle and so forth, I think you have to do it, you know, I think you can't, if you, if you find yourself stuck in a in, a in a role, where you are either constantly finding yourself in a victim and a victim mentality, or that the role is basically whether you are accepting it or not, is basically treating you in a way that makes you question your self-worth and so forth, then, then I do believe that after you try to, you know, sort of say how do I take charge of the situation, that leaving isn't is a is always a possibility. But I always like to say to people before you leave, try, try taking charge of it, try thinking about what you can do differently and get out of that mindset of the shoulds and so forth. I mean, I don't know we probably all have this my very first job in sort of the corporate world. I like quit after three weeks. It was because I just was like this, like I had this boss that was like micromanaging me, whatever. And I wish and it's funny because I was still there three months later. I don't know it's a long story. I won't go into what I wish I could have. I wish I could have gone back to myself back then and said, You know what, if you just stick it out, and not worry so much about I think for me it was this just constant sense of anxiety because I had this micromanaging boss that I was doing things wrong, and then I couldn't figure out how to do things right. And if I had just understood, like, first of all 90% of that wasn't about me. It was about security to the person who was working for me And then if I just did it, if I just said that, you know, like I said before you sort of feed the beast and basically say, here's, here's all the detail you're asking for, here's the changes you want, or whatever, that I would have actually gotten to the point where I had overcome that behavior from my boss, because my boss would have started to trust me. And then at that point, I would have learned so much from that particular boss, I would have learned a ton about marketing and, and consulting and so forth. But instead, I just like, I couldn't take it. I was like, This is making me feel terrible. And so I think, I think it's, you know, to me, it's like, how do you, how do you take charge of the situation, and if you if the only way to take charge of the situation is to leave, then leave. But there are lots of things you can probably in most situations, you know, there are definitely situations where you just gotta get out. Because the, the atmosphere is just inappropriate or whatever. But a lot of the time, if you sort of say, well, okay, before I leave, if I could take charge of the situation, what would I do differently?
Kim Meninger
I think it's a really good point because I always say the, you know, you're the only common denominator in your career, right? And so, if I were that whatever happens, if you practice where you are today, you're just gonna have stronger muscles wherever you go next to right. So I think absolutely, just thinking about what's within your control, what can you test out here? What, what can you learn so that you're that wherever you go?
Jeff Sigel
Yeah, that that idea of you can learn something from every boss, I think it's a really, you know, even, even if it's like, I'm, I'm learning all the things that are never going to do when I roll, you're still learning something. So yeah, I completely agree.
Kim Meninger
Oh, my gosh, Jeff, I can talk to you all day. We're, I want to make sure that anyone who's interested in finding your book you connecting learning more about what you do that we have access to that. So where can people find you?
Jeff Sigel
Yeah, so probably the best way to find me right now is JeffSigel.com is my author site. So super easy. there and you can see all about my upcoming book again, it's called The Middle Matters: A Toolkit for Middle Managers. And it is actually probably be released by the time we're on air. So, so it is it is available on Amazon and, and, and other places. So.
Kim Meninger
Wonderful. I'll make sure the links are in the show notes for anyone who's interested. And thank you so much, Jeff. This has been such a great conversation.
Jeff Sigel
Likewise, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.