In this episode, Melody Wilding discusses how to create change at work without losing yourself. She challenges the idea that you’re powerless at work, even in tough cultures. If you’ve ever wondered how to navigate office politics, or if there’s a way to work with integrity even when you’re not in charge, this conversation will give you both practical tools and hope.
Get Weekly Bites of Wisdom delivered to your inbox. Every Wednesday, you’ll receive a short, practical email that distills the big ideas from different episodes on topics like mental health, relationships, anxiety, and purpose – into bite-sized practices you can use right away. It’s free, takes about a minute to read. You’ll also receive a Weekend Podcast playlist every Friday to ensure you don’t miss an episode! Join now at oneyoufeed.net/newsletter.
Key Takeaways:
- The internal and cultural struggle between hope and despair in the context of global crises.
- The concept of “radical hope” as a resilient form of hope amidst harsh realities.
- The inadequacy of typical positivity in addressing complex real-world problems.
- The need for a new “rational mysticism” suitable for the 21st century.
- The dangers of failing to establish a stable, shared sense of meaning in society.
- The critique of hyper-individualistic and consumer-driven culture in relation to existential risks.
- The historical evolution of existential risk narratives and their implications for modern society.
- The importance of community and connection in fostering healing and growth.
- The challenges of creating secular communities that provide meaningful structure and belonging.
- The potential for a revived Western rational mysticism to address contemporary spiritual needs and crises.
Melody Wilding is a professor of human behavior at Hunter College and author of Managing Up. She was recently named one of Insider’s “most innovative career coaches.” Her background as a therapist and emotions researcher informs her unique approach, weaving evidence-based neuroscience and psychology with professional development. Her previous book is Trust Yourself.
Connect with Melody Wilding Website | Instagram
If you enjoyed this conversation with Melody Wilding, check out these other episodes:
How to Simplify Your Life and Find More Fulfillment in Your Work with John Kaag
How to Recognize the Hidden Signs of Burnout with Leah Weiss
By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you!
If you enjoy our podcast and find value in our content, please consider supporting the show. By joining our Patreon Community, you’ll receive exclusive content only available on Patreon! Click here to learn more!!
Episode Transcript:
Melody Wilding 00:00:00 Often we jump to saying, this person is a micromanager. This person is just a jerk, right? We throw these labels out. They’re just vague. They don’t know what they want. Instead of talking about the behavior that defines that because when we stay stuck on the label, the assumption, the accusation that we’re making sort of closes us off. We just categorize that person, and there’s not much problem solving we can do from there, which hurts us in the end.
Chris Forbes 00:00:33 Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts. We have quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf.
Eric Zimmer 00:01:17 Most of us want work to feel fair, collaborative, and meaningful. But what do you do when the system isn’t built for that? Today’s guest, Melodie Wilding, is an executive coach and the author of Managing Up How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge. She challenges the idea that you’re powerless at work, even in tough cultures. Early in my own career, I struggled with the belief that my happiness depended on someone outside of me the boss, the company. The system had to change first. But what I learned and what Melody unpacks so brilliantly is it? Agency isn’t all or nothing. You can hold out for better leaders and work to change the system, and at the very same time, find small ways to choose your next best move. If you’ve ever wondered how to navigate office politics, or if there’s a way to work with integrity even when you’re not in charge, this conversation will give you both practical tools and hope. I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Melody, welcome to the show.
Melody Wilding 00:02:34 Thanks so much for having me.
Eric Zimmer 00:02:35 I’m excited to talk with you about your work in general, which is really about how our psychology and the psychology of the people we work with come together to make a meaningful and enjoyable and successful work experience. And specifically, your latest book is called Managing Up How to Get What You Need from the People in charge. But before we get into that, we’ll start like we always do with the parable. And in the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Eric Zimmer 00:03:27 So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.
Melody Wilding 00:03:33 To me, really, the underlying message is about agency that we may not choose our circumstances, the people around us, but we do choose what we get to reinforce. And if there is one small action you can take every day to feel more in control, you are were not just at the mercy of your inner world or the people around you. You have more power over that. You have more choice than you think you do.
Eric Zimmer 00:04:02 I love that that is the direct and straightforward interpretation of the parable, and it aligns really closely with something I think a lot about because you mentioned, like we don’t necessarily have control over a lot of things, but we do have some control. And I think for me, that’s this sort of core belief that no matter where we are, whatever circumstance we’re in, there is some small positive direction we can head in. It may be a lot smaller than we wish.
Eric Zimmer 00:04:31 It may even be less positive than we wish. But but there is a way of orienting towards, as you say, agency and choice.
Melody Wilding 00:04:38 Exactly. And I think when we start to get into the context of managing up, in particular, what I often hear from people is, well, why should this be my job? Why should I have to take on the emotional labor of managing the people above me. And I think there is a both and here that yes, the systems around us need to change. We all want leaders to be better, and they do have a need to get better. And we don’t want to be at the mercy of that. We don’t want to wait until things magically improve because despite our best efforts, unfortunately, it may never. And in the meantime, we don’t want our happiness, satisfaction, our sense of peace of mind in our career to suffer. So it’s a bit of a both. And we can work to advocate, to change the system and try to get what we need, while we have to operate within that imperfection.
Eric Zimmer 00:05:32 Yeah, I love that. I’m always a middle way, both and kind of guy. And I do think that that’s really important because this idea that it’s somebody else’s job to make us happy and whatever domain we want to go in is always going to be a problematic line of thought. It’s not that others don’t have a lot of influence on our lives, and oftentimes maybe even control in certain ways, but it’s always our job to figure out the best way to to work. And I really love this idea of managing up. I said to you, before we started, there was a book I read when I was like 28 years old. I couldn’t find it on Kindle. I was going to look at it again. It was called Never Confuse a memo with reality and other Business Lessons. Too simple not to know, and I remember it was mind blowing to me. And your book, I think, would have had a similar impact if I’d had it early in my career, in that I would have been like, oh, hang on a second, like there is a way to work with people above me that is skillful and wise and enhances my career without being smarmy or slimy or into office politics or all of that stuff.
There’s like a way to do this with a degree of integrity that improves my life.
Melody Wilding 00:06:54 Yeah, I appreciate you saying that, because part of my goal with the book was to actually bring some order and explicitness to some of these unspoken rules and dynamics that feels like it’s just swirling all around us. And I talked to so many people, even those who are very seasoned and more advanced in their career, and they will say, I feel like I missed the memo. I feel like everyone around me got this guidebook to how to succeed at this level that that I didn’t. What am I missing? I feel like I’m playing catch up. And they feel like they’re at the whims of the personalities, the politics around them. And so what I tried to do was operationalize and actually bring some concreteness to this is the dynamic that’s at play because as you were saying, it all comes down to psychology. We are just humans operating in a system. That’s what work is. And we’re trying to move towards hopefully some shared goals together.
Melody Wilding 00:07:52 But when that happens these dynamics come up. So we can put our head in the sand and pretend that they don’t exist. Or we can say, you know, I’m just going to focus on my work and that will speak for itself. But often when you do that, it feels noble in the moment, but it comes back to bite you. It can be naive because this will be the water you swim in, whether you like it or not. As you were saying, we can choose to navigate it with integrity without selling out or sacrificing our soul and who we are. And actually, if you are someone that has high emotional intelligence that gives you such a competitive advantage and leg up to do this well, because you are someone who cares about other people, you don’t want to be a shyster or Machiavellian about all of this, but you do have great perceptiveness and An attunement to some of the subtleties, some of the invisible dynamics, like when someone’s posture or facial expression changes during a meeting, and you can maybe chime in and say, oh, did you have a question about that? Right.
Melody Wilding 00:09:00 And, and uncover some sort of unspoken objection. Or you can you can empathize and really get into what is someone’s pain point pressures, goals that they have and then frame your messages around that. So actually that EQ is what allows you to manage up with high integrity.
Eric Zimmer 00:09:21 It does. And it’s not immediately intuitive how to do that. And one of the things I really liked about this book is that I, I’ve talked to a lot of people over the years, coaching clients, audience members who are in a situation where they can’t figure out whether the job is the problem or they are the problem, right? Like, do I have a is this a bad fit, bad place for me and else I need to move on. Or do I need to adjust my attitude accordingly, etc. and what I like about this book is that it gives a fairly clear framework, at least to me, of here are. Let’s say I’ve got a problem with my boss. Here are some things that I can do.
Eric Zimmer 00:10:01 And if I do all those things and it still sucks. Well, that’s a pretty clear sign that maybe I need to be somewhere else, right? It’s a way of getting off that indecision point that I see a lot of people in, which is like, can I improve this or do I need to leave? And I like things that give us tangible ways to improve, to help us do little experiments that tell us whether indeed this is salvageable or not. So I’d like to get into what some of those things are. We sort of alluded to the idea that managing up can feel like it’s office politics, or it’s sucking up to the boss. Talk to me about why it’s not that what we’re doing here? That’s different than that?
Melody Wilding 00:10:46 Yes. Well, first let me just pick up on that comment you said about managing up and and trying this skill set out. It is the fastest way to figure out is this is this somewhere I can thrive? Because there are so many stage gates throughout the book where you can say, is this working for me or not? It’s the quickest way to validate that.
Melody Wilding 00:11:08 And so I appreciate you saying that because not many people have picked up on that. And that was that was absolutely part of part of my more subtle intentions with the book. So I appreciate you saying that. I mean, when most people hear the term managing up, they automatically jump to sucking up. And it makes sense because it’s usually how we see it depicted in movies and in TV shows, it’s the person running behind the leader with coffee spilling all over them, and the the person who is remembers their spouses birthday and buys them the gift for them. It’s more of this, almost like personal assistant or that gopher mentality. And of course, so many of us resist this idea and say, well, I don’t want to do that, because who who wants to ingratiate themselves or make themselves subservient to another person? No one wants to do that. It’s not empowering. And so what my very basic definition of managing up is, it is about navigating your relationships with the people that have more positional power than you.
Melody Wilding 00:12:11 Primarily, that is your direct boss. It is not only your direct boss which we can talk about, but this is something. At the end of the day you do for yourself. We’re often told managing up is about making your leader, your boss, look good. That is a nice side effect of it if you do it well. But fundamentally, this is the best and fastest way for you to reclaim a sense of control and ownership at work to reclaim a sense of of confidence, because managing up is what helps you create the conditions for you to be successful, for you to have the clarity, the feedback, the resources, the opportunities that you need. So it’s really about designing the conditions for your success and shaping the outcomes around you. Not just being a passenger in your work, but actually being that that proactive driver and a partner to your leader instead of being in that subordinate mindset, that people pleaser mindset. What I’m advocating for here is going to a trusted advisor or a partnership mindset.
Eric Zimmer 00:13:23 Yeah, you structure the book as a series of conversations that people can have with both, you know, their boss, their boss’s boss, other people in the organization. Right. It’s it’s it’s a series of conversations. And the first one is the alignment conversation. and you talk about getting in your boss’s head. And this is something that I figure it took me till later in my career to stumble into this right before I left to do the podcast full time. So this is about six years ago. Up till then, I had been in the software business a bunch of years, and late in my career, I sort of figured out that the key to success was I needed to know what was really, actually important to my boss. And I remember it was interesting because the last five years that I was in that career, I had started this podcast, and I knew a couple of years into that I was like, my goal is to get out of here and do this full time. But that was the money, wasn’t there to do it right.
Eric Zimmer 00:14:16 There were circumstances and and I couldn’t do that. So I had to keep this sort of day job while I also did this podcast. So my goal was to put as little effort into the day job as possible. However, I’m not a like, it’s just not my nature not to be good at and do well at what I do. So what ended up happening that I found really interesting was that I got almost better at my job, because what I figured out was I needed to focus relentlessly on only what really mattered to my boss and their objectives. And I had to say no to everything else because I wanted that time for me. And again, as I said, I sort of almost in some ways got better as a as a worker in that way because that was all I was focused on. I just got really clear. And that’s kind of what this alignment conversation is with your boss. Right? It’s one of if I know what’s really important, then I can really focus my efforts in that direction and be more effective at work.
Melody Wilding 00:15:24 Yes, I love I love that story because just look at that example how at the end of the day, you created a win win. It was a win actually a a triple win. And this is something I talk about in the book where it was a win for your manager. Yes. You’re ruthlessly focused on what’s most important to their priorities when for the organization, because I would I imagine you were advancing work that was of high value and a win for you, because you could free up that extra time to work on this, which is fantastic. That is excellent. Managing up, finding something at that intersection there. And we start with alignment, because if we’re not rowing in the same direction as our leadership or our organization, it’s going to feel like we’re just standing in place. We’re spinning our wheels. We’ve all had that terrible feeling. When you go away to work on something, you bring it back and you deliver it to your leader and they say, oh, we’ve moved on from that, and you just have that gut punch of, I wasted so much time on this which could have been prevented.
Melody Wilding 00:16:28 And so that’s, that’s a big part of where the alignment conversation comes in. making sure you understand the definition of success so that you are working on the highest value promotional work.
Eric Zimmer 00:16:42 Yeah. And what I think is interesting is sitting on both sides of this, right. The managing up. But at the same time I was managing up, I had, you know, people reporting to me, and we have this sense that these kind of conversations with our boss are going to be uncomfortable. They’re going to be unpleasant, they’re going to be unwelcome. And what I found is whenever any of my people came to me and said, hey, I am a little confused on which of these three things is most important. I loved it, right? I loved the opportunity to be able to help them sort through that question like, you know, and I envisioned myself as a decent manager, but I always welcome these kind of conversations.
Melody Wilding 00:17:19 Absolutely right. Yeah. It shows. It shows your level of interest.
Melody Wilding 00:17:24 It’s a demonstration of upward empathy. And upward empathy isn’t necessarily agreeing with everything your boss does, but it’s making an attempt to understand it and contextualize it. Yes and yes. So when when you can show that that genuine interest. Managers, especially middle managers, have have it pretty rough. They’re being they’re being squeezed from below. They’re being squeezed from above. And and when you attempt to understand, hey, what are the pressures you are under? When does this need to be delivered by that? That goes such a long way to build that trust and rapport with them.
Eric Zimmer 00:18:17 I think that upward empathy is really important, actually, all the way up and down the chain, because everybody has got some pressure on them. You could be like, well, the CEO doesn’t, but of course they do. They have huge pressure from their board, from their investors. I mean, everybody is getting pressure from above to do things a certain way. And I found that the more I can upward empathize to my boss, even above that, above that, I start to see everything a little bit differently.
Eric Zimmer 00:18:46 I start to have a bigger, wider perspective, and I start to take the decisions that are made far less personally because I can see the context in which they’re occurring. They’re not capricious. I mean, I’m not saying that some places there’s not I mean, there are bad places to be. But in general, these things are happening for a reason. We may not agree with the strategy, but we may understand the reason.
Melody Wilding 00:19:08 Yes, yes. And that is such a huge theme in the book. I’m sure we’ll talk about the styles conversation. This is another place where that that objectivity prevents you from personalizing someone else’s behavior. But yes, the same with the alignment conversation. It it elevates you to operating more like a higher level leader. But yes, it also just it gives you groundedness to be more cognitively flexible, to understand what else might be going on here, instead of me jumping to my boss is an idiot and has no idea what they’re doing or what’s going on in this organization. If you can say, help me understand what conversations you’re having at the leadership level.
Melody Wilding 00:19:52 One of my favorite questions from that chapter is, what are the metrics you are asked about the most, or what are the metrics you are discussing most often with your leader? Because that really helps you quickly crystallize what are they going to care about? Right? And what is their attention going to be drawn to that may not be showing up on your, your deck necessarily.
Eric Zimmer 00:20:15 Right? Right. In this chapter about alignment, you talk about a power mapping framework. Explain to me what that is and why it’s useful in this context.
Melody Wilding 00:20:27 I mentioned a moment ago that managing up. Yes, primarily were in most cases talking about influencing your direct leader. But you have to go beyond your boss. You cannot make your boss your single point of failure. It’s kind of like how you diversify your finances. You don’t put everything you have in the stock market. You put a little bit in different vehicles, so if something goes sideways, you’re protected. It’s the same sort of mentality when it comes to managing up.
Melody Wilding 00:20:55 We need to diversify who we are building relationships with. And the fact is that the way organizations and companies are structured now, most of the time you are not just reporting to your direct boss. You may have a project lead or even external stakeholders like a client or a vendor or a regulatory partner. And that person you have to you have to craft your perception and navigate competing priorities with as well. So it’s so much broader than that. Your power map, that exercise is there to figure out who beyond your boss, do you need to be aligning with. And specifically, very simply, you can take all of the different players that you have and plot them on a graph. And I give you a template for that in the book, and you want to look at specifically who are people that are both high in influence and high interest. So that means it is someone that has traditional power, has a high level of influence and sway, but also has high investment, high personal interest in your project.
Melody Wilding 00:22:05 Those are the people you want to manage most closely.
Eric Zimmer 00:22:09 And then you talk about once you have that figured out, you could sort of think of them in four categories. Like manage them closely. Keep them satisfied, keep them informed, and basically keep an eye on them. You call it monitoring, but just making sure they don’t, you know, they’re not going off the off the rails, but it is a really true thing. I ended my career in product management and leading a team of product managers, and I think that role helps you see that so clearly. Because you have so many stakeholders, you’ve got to market the product, you’ve got to make sure it’s supported and delivered. You’ve got software developers to make happy. You’ve got the business to make happy. So I think that role gives you that perspective. But I think if it’s not that obvious to you, this is a really helpful exercise in seeing that my satisfaction at work and my success at work is more than, as you say, just my boss.
Eric Zimmer 00:23:02 That’s obviously the person doing my reviews, but lots of things change. Sometimes your boss is just gone. Right. You you think things are good? You’ve got a good relationship with your boss. Your boss is gone. And it’s those other relationships that will help your new boss recognise your value and importance. At least that’s been my experience.
Melody Wilding 00:23:22 Yeah, you nailed it. That. That’s another reason we need to diversify our advocates and our our allies. Because. Yes. Who who is your leader? Today may not be tomorrow. And the power map comes in very handy when we’re living in a time where, I mean, I have clients that have gone through three, four and 18 months. And so you are constantly having to reorient yourself and having to see through those invisible politics that are at play. And this is just a way to help you organize and see more clearly. Okay, how do I need to prioritize my time and who are the different players here?
Eric Zimmer 00:23:59 There’s a question near the end of this chapter, and I promise we’ll move on to another chapter, but obviously not very many at this rate.
Eric Zimmer 00:24:07 But but this is an important one. And as a question of what do you do when you work for a control freak? You’ve got some great ones in here that you’re immediately like, I want the answer to that one. So I’m like, okay, this is a good one.
Melody Wilding 00:24:19 Yes. This was, you know, I had to put this at the beginning of the book because this is classic managing up. What do I do when I work for a micromanager or someone who is who’s really just clamping down on control? And this is where understanding the psychology comes into play yet again. Many times people micromanage because of their own insecurities. And often it’s because of their fear of ambiguity. And so, counterintuitively, with a micromanager, you actually want to give them more information because that can satisfy this this need to feel I am in the loop. I understand what’s happening. So a big mistake that I see people make when you’re working for this type of boss, is that you will kind of squirrel away.
Melody Wilding 00:25:06 You will work on a presentation or a report you had to do. You will not show it to your manager because you don’t want them nitpicking you along the way. Right? You don’t want the constant comments and corrections, but then what often happens is you show them the final thing and they’re like, do it all over. You get that reaction. And so instead, what I have found worked very effectively for many of my clients is presenting rough drafts to show your thinking about, hey, here’s how I am approaching this. Here’s a rough skeleton of how I’m thinking of approaching this. I’m sure you have stories about this having worked in product, because this is a big thing you have to do, and you can say, this may be rough around the edges, but before I go any further, I want to make sure we have the biggest elements in play and I take into account everything you want me to incorporate. So let’s talk about that now so I can bake that in as I move along.
Eric Zimmer 00:26:01 Before we dive back into the conversation, let me ask you something. What’s one thing that has been holding you back lately? You know that it’s there. You’ve tried to push past it, but somehow it keeps getting in the way. You’re not alone in this. And I’ve identified six major saboteurs of self-control things like autopilot behavior, self-doubt, emotional escapism that quietly derail our best intentions. But here’s the good news you can outsmart them. And I’ve put together a free guide to help you spot these hidden obstacles and give you simple, actionable strategies that you can use to regain control. Download the free guide now at one Eufy e-book and take the first step towards getting back on track. That’s always such a tricky balance. I have found like creating something there’s like a sweet spot where there where bringing other people in makes sense too early and it’s too unformed. But if I go too far, I’ve realized, and this is even in in my work today. If I take it to a certain level and then I bring somebody in right at the end, what I’m really wanting at that point is them to say it’s it’s good, it’s done.
Eric Zimmer 00:27:13 I mean, I’m saying I want feedback, but at that point, what I’m hoping is there’s no feedback and we’re done. And I’ve realized that’s too late because then I’m not open to feedback. So there’s some sweet spot between I’ve got enough down here that somebody can make suggestions, make, you know, constructive criticisms. But I’m not so far along that I’m wedded to the idea. And I’m just like sprinting to the finish line.
Melody Wilding 00:27:38 What you said there is important, too, because often we go into these conversations and we think we’re being collaborative and open minded to say, what do you think? Or what’s your reaction to this? And especially for a control freak type of personality that’s just way too open ended. You are inviting all sorts of different levels of criticism that you may not want or need at that point. So the more pointed you can be with your question, like in those situations, you might say, we’ve already finalized the strategy and the messaging. What I need your feedback on at this point is the color scheme that we’re, that we’re going with for this feature.
Melody Wilding 00:28:15 And so directing people to the altitude of the feedback you need and saying, here’s what’s off limits. Here’s specifically what I need your input on. Often we’re not directive enough. And then we get resentful for the feedback that we do get.
Eric Zimmer 00:28:31 Yeah, I’ve been right in the middle of this because I am I have a book coming out next year in April, and I read the acknowledgements of everybody’s book I have for years. I find them fascinating because you’re like, how many people worked on this book? You’re like a whole whole lot of people, it seems like. But as I’ve thought about it, I’ve been like, well, who do I invite in to look at this and give comments? And what am I actually at? What am I asking for? Like that’s the that’s the thing. I’m like, oh, okay. I’m not looking for grammar corrections. We’re not at that point where I’m going to have a copy editor that’s going to do that. What I’m after is pacing. Does it feel like it bogs down clarity? Do you feel like you understand? You know, like so asking for specific feedback is actually useful.
Eric Zimmer 00:29:15 Where when I’ve said to people, hey, what do you think it’s been? Not very useful generally.
Melody Wilding 00:29:20 Yes. And if it’s helpful to you, something something I did while writing this book was I did I did share early drafts with a very select group of people, and the framework I gave them was A, B, C. What would you like to see? Added what felt boring and what felt confusing and so they could go through great. Yeah, they could go through the draft and leave comments that would say, hey, I would find it really helpful to have a specific script or example here. Be boring. You lost my interest because this sounds too jargon y or whatever it was, so take that if it’s helpful to you, but it’s a great way of organizing some of that feedback.
Eric Zimmer 00:29:56 It is helpful. We’re almost a copy at it, so I may be past the point where I can I can do that. We’re getting close. So all right, let’s move on to styles.
Eric Zimmer 00:30:07 You talk about identifying other styles or other personality types. What are the styles and and how might we go about identifying them and why is this useful?
Melody Wilding 00:30:19 This is the second conversation because if alignment is what we are focused on, then styles is how do we accomplish it together when we may have different approaches or preferences to how we work? What I have found is that the in the vast majority of situations. Disclaimer here that there are truly toxic, damaging professional situations, but the vast majority of the time that we are finding someone difficult or hard to work with. It moreso comes down to a difference in styles. So this goes back to what you were saying earlier about how once we see something more clearly, we see the dynamic going on. We don’t take it as personally. And this is where styles is so foundational. What we know is, generally speaking, if you look at decades of psychological research, communication styles broadly break down into two different dimensions. You have dominance, which is how much control does someone like to assert in a situation? How quickly do they move? And then you also have sociability.
Melody Wilding 00:31:28 How much do they prioritize relationships and connections with other people? You map those high low on each. You get four high level communication styles. Of course, in real life, people don’t always cleanly fit into one of these buckets, but this is a helpful way to kind of decode the personalities around you as well as yourself, and then be able to speak to your own preferences as well. So the four styles in my book, I conceptualize them as the four CS. There are different models for this, but the four sees. The first one is commander. So that is someone who is high on dominance, lower on sociability. So this is the person that moves really quickly, may make decisions with incomplete information, or before everyone is on board. They care about results, efficiency, the bottom line. So they tend to be more of the dominant type. And then we have cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are high in dominance just like the commander. But they are. They are also high in sociability. And so they also move fast.
Melody Wilding 00:32:35 They aim big. They tend to be a bit more enthusiastic, a bit warmer. These are your kind of vision mission, big picture person, which means that they’re great visionaries and they love to motivate people, but they can come off as a little flighty sometimes. So we have Commander cheerleader, and then there is the caretaker, someone who is low on dominance, high on sociability, so high on sociability, just like the cheerleader. So they care about people. And is everyone on board with the decision, but they prioritize harmony, stability. They may take longer to make decisions because they want to really understand something more in depth. They tend to be very careful with feedback, or even sometimes resistant to conflict, because they don’t want to upset the applecart. And then last is the controller. So they are low on both of those dimensions. And this is someone who is really focused on methodology, process, precision, accuracy. They really strive for excellence in everything they do. They’re very thorough. They may ask a lot of questions to really deeply understand something, but they’re lower on sociability.
Melody Wilding 00:33:49 So they tend to be very task focused. Sometimes can come off as rigid or not open to new ideas. You can hear in each of these how there’s there’s positives, there’s drawbacks to each of them. But I’m actually curious, do you see yourself in any one of those that I mentioned?
Eric Zimmer 00:34:04 So I am one of those. Like every time you take a personality test, I seem to land smack near the middle of things. So I would say I have. I’m definitely not a commander. I probably oscillate between cheerleader and caretaker would be probably more where I spend my time. As I think about my management style, I do care a lot about relationships and however I can, and so maybe there a little commander does come out where I in the heat of the moment. I assume relationships are good in general because I invest in them. So in the in the moment, I often am like, okay, you know, maybe can be brusque because I feel like the team knows how to take it.
Eric Zimmer 00:34:52 And then I usually check in afterwards, like if I’m like, if I seemed a little, you know, whatever. You know, I was just kind of trying to push us through. So I would say somewhere cheerleader, caretaker mainly.
Melody Wilding 00:35:04 Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that because your experience is spot on for most people that we may have 1 or 2 of them that we lean towards more often. Right. And usually, like I would say, I’m, I’m kind of caretaker controller type. and usually it’s two of two adjacent styles. It’s, it’s rare to find someone who’s a caretaker can, caretaker commander primarily. Yeah. But all of that said, I really appreciate what you said about adapting to the situation. That is the biggest hallmark of professional maturity, in my opinion, that I’ve seen over time, is being responsive and attuned to what the moment calls for, because there are going to be times where even if you are more of a caretaker, that’s what you naturally lean towards. More of a commander style is needed because you need to be to the point.
Melody Wilding 00:35:57 Like you said, the team can take it or there’s urgency, or there’s some sort of very important result that you’re working for, and you need to flex into that style. So all of these are available to all of us. And actually the real work is knowing when, you know, when do we when do we shine on that facet of the diamond and actually bring that style forward?
Eric Zimmer 00:36:55 I’m thinking back to my my last job in product management was with a retail company. And so, you know, those two weeks are on Christmas are the whole year, right? So there is a way of operating in that situation that is very different than the way, at least for me, was very different than the way I would operate in June. Right. Because we don’t have time to analyze everything. Something’s not going right. We have to very quickly take a stab at fixing it. We don’t have time to talk around the problem. We just it’s it’s different. But in June, we can spend a lot more time making sure everything is right.
Eric Zimmer 00:37:31 And so yeah, moving between those I think is is interesting. So what do I do with these as far as so I try and understand what mine is. And then maybe the people who are closest around me.
Melody Wilding 00:37:42 Yeah. Yeah there’s two sides to this. As you were saying, styles goes both ways where you want to you want to try to decode the people around you so you can listen for language or phrasing that they use. I was saying before that the cheerleader may be someone that uses words more like vision, mission, big picture, motivated opportunity, possibility. And if you want to be able to influence or connect with that person more, then you can you can start to frame your messages around that. You can start to use more of your wording. Or if you’re trying to persuade a commander, for example, like, I’ll give you just a classic dynamic that I see, which is caretakers who tend to be more thorough. They want to understand the details they care about who was on board, the background of a situation.
Melody Wilding 00:38:35 We may lead with that context. And, you know, go on a five minute explanation about that. The commander is likely going to cut you off and say, what’s the bottom line here? Or, you know, I don’t have time for this right now. I just I just need your clear ask from me. Can you be more direct is often feedback you’ll get from that type of person and so you’ll be more successful. You will. You will lower your own stress and your ability for your message to land with that person. If you just make that little tweak of leading with your bottom line of starting your conversation with, I need five minutes of your time today. My clear ask is this I can give you more details about how we got here, but I wanted to let you know that that’s the decision I need from you right now. Yep. And and so it’s it’s not compromising who you are. It is just slightly reframing how you present something. So that’s that’s the adaptation to their style.
Melody Wilding 00:39:34 But we also don’t want to lose you in this mix. And the second half of that chapter is really about that. How do you share and assert your preferences? There’s an entire exercise in that chapter all about creating what I call a me manual, which is your operating guide to you as a professional. How do you process information. Make decisions. What type of place do you enjoy for your work? Do you like to be heads down on one thing for a long time? Do you like to bounce between different projects? What sort of limitations and boundaries do you need around your work in terms of? Do you stop at a certain time? Do whatever it is and that gives you something that you can. I have many people who will actually hand that over to their manager and say, I want to make your life easier. And there are some insights I’ve gathered about myself. I want to make sure you can get the best performance from me possible, and we’ll share that with their manager. A lot of people are afraid to do that, but I can tell you, everyone who has done that says it opened up such an amazing conversation.
Melody Wilding 00:40:42 My manager appreciated it because guess what? It takes so much cognitive load off of their plate. Just please tell me what to do. I have so many things to think about. Just tell me what to do to get what I need from you. Yeah. And I’ve had so many managers say, actually, can we use this with our entire team? Because this would be a great exercise for all of us to do. So you can use your manual in that way. Or you can just pull out specific elements of it. Like for example, let’s say I have a bunch of folks who right now are starting with new bosses. And so some questions I’m having them ask are things like, what level of insight or oversight do you need into this project? Where can I make decisions independently? And they let their manager answer and then they say, great, that’s really helpful. From from my side, what I’ve learned over time is here’s what’s helpful for me in terms of how I manage projects and how I’ve found it helpful to update other leaders in the past.
Melody Wilding 00:41:43 Does that work for you, or is there anything you would like to change? And so it becomes more of this two way street, rather than just you contorting yourself to whatever they want.
Eric Zimmer 00:41:53 Yeah, I think there’s a few really important points in the things that you just said. One is there is a desire to be authentic, to be ourselves. And sometimes I think we can take that a little too far. Meaning, like, I’m always this, this is who I am, this is the way I am. And my experience is that use whatever term you want. Psychologically flexible people, emotionally mature people, I don’t know, pick other words of, healthy people recognize that there’s different sides of them that are going to come out to different degrees with different people. Like, I’m not the same with my friend Chris as I am with my partner Jenny, or, I’m not the same with you as I am with my partner Jenny. Right? Like there are different sides of me that that come out, and that doesn’t mean I’m inauthentic.
Eric Zimmer 00:42:44 Now, there are ways of being inauthentic, but there’s also ways of being like, okay, I’m just. I’m bringing the part of me that’s most adapted to this situation and in a very skillful way. And then I think the second thing there that was really important was this idea of really seeing the boss relationship. As I think there’s a way of both being way too subservient, obsequious, and there’s a way of being way too in my mind. Like, this is who I am. They better. They better like it, right? There’s a middle ground there of doing the things you’re saying, like communicating openly and honestly about what works and what doesn’t work for you. And I think that goes a long way.
Melody Wilding 00:43:32 Oh, yes. That’s more of stepping into that trusted advisor partner mindset where instead of putting yourself in this one down position of, I’ll do whatever you say or whatever you need, you’re you’re coming to the table more as a negotiation and more so trying to find a workable compromise. Of course.
Melody Wilding 00:43:51 The power. The power differential is still there, and they’re at the end of the day. You may still have to be deferential to them because they’re the boss. They they sign your paycheck, so to speak. But we don’t want to lose ourselves in that. Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:44:06 So you’ve got another one of these great questions here, which is you’re unsure if your manager’s behavior is a quirk or a red flag. Talk to me about how we sort of sort this out. And it goes to the next question that you have, which is what to do if you’re actually dealing with a toxic jerk. But the first question is, how do I determine whether that’s actually the case? I mean, that’s a term that I think gets dramatically overused today. This person is toxic. Again, I think there’s like anything it’s very good to recognize certain relationships can be very damaging. And and you want to limit themselves. I think we as we often do in anything we over to another side where now people who are different than us are toxic.
Eric Zimmer 00:44:44 But that’s a different conversation. But given this, what is a way of finding whether we are indeed dealing with a toxic person or a situation that we can’t change, or one that we can.
Melody Wilding 00:44:57 Yeah, the word toxic, it is thrown around a lot. Again, there are legitimately damaging, psychologically emotionally damaging situations that happen. And styles can be this fine line because, well, when is this just someone’s preference and way that they show up versus when is this something I really shouldn’t tolerate anymore? So that’s why I included this. I think it is important though, to talk about behaviors instead of labels. This also comes up in a later chapter in the book which is called the Feedback conversation. But often we jump to saying this person is a micromanager. This person is is just a jerk, right? We throw these labels out. They’re just vague. They don’t know what they want. Instead of talking about the behavior that defines that. Because when we stay stuck on the label, the assumption, the accusation that we’re making sort of closes us off.
Melody Wilding 00:45:53 We just categorize that person, and there’s not much problem solving we can do from there, which hurts us in the end. And so instead of just throwing your hands up and saying, oh, my boss is just impossible, what exactly? What exactly? So if we’re talking about a micromanager, let’s go back to that example. What specifically makes makes you feel like you’re being micromanaged? I had a situation a couple of months ago where someone came to me and said, my boss is asking for they want me to run every email I’m sending to this specific client past them. That’s something we can take action on. That’s something we can give feedback on potentially, or to even ask a question about to say. I’ve noticed that the the level of input you want on these types of communications has changed. Is there something I’m not aware of? and then you can come to the table instead of just writing off that person altogether.
Eric Zimmer 00:46:48 Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of relationship 101, right? If you go into a couples counselor, it’s one of the first things they’re going to say.
Eric Zimmer 00:46:54 Don’t don’t call your partner, uncaring. What was the behavior that made you feel like they were uncaring, or what was the behavior that made you think they’re rude? You have to focus on behavior versus labels and also behavior. As you said, you can you can get specific feedback on. You may still not get the answer you want, but you can at least, you know, be talking about something very specific. And I think that’s just so foundational to the way we relate to everyone in our lives and frankly, how we relate to ourselves. Right? Because that’s one of the things I see in coaching clients a lot. This I am this way versus I am doing this thing because I’m doing this thing. We can figure out ways around I am this way as a very it’s a very limiting place to be.
Melody Wilding 00:47:43 Yes. That’s right. And it goes to. Do you want to hang on to that story? Right. Is that story serving you now? That said, you do need to weigh what is at stake here.
Melody Wilding 00:47:54 And I like to take people through sort of a future pacing question there to ask. All right. If this continued as is, if nothing changed for six months, for a year, would you be able to tolerate that? Because toxic means different things to all of us. Just if we go back to the styles conversation, someone may perceive someone as toxic. If they are overly Pollyanna positive. When things are tough, someone may perceive someone else as toxic if they are critical of their work and ask them a lot of questions and in front of other leaders in a meeting, for example. And so it comes down to, is this workable for you, the chemistry of this relationship. And when you can project out and you can say, no, there’s no way. There’s no way I’d be able to take this for another six months if nothing changed. And to look at is this a pattern that extends beyond me, particularly when we’re talking about more challenging behaviors, like someone is raising their voice at you and things like that.
Melody Wilding 00:49:00 Is this something that is just happening with you which is still important and worth addressing? Or is this a pattern that is extended to other people that you see in other situations?
Eric Zimmer 00:49:11 Yeah, I think that that second point is a really tricky and nuanced one, because there is often a groupthink that starts to happen among people about the way their manager is. And again, this is not to say that sometimes those perceptions aren’t entirely accurate. And I agree with you. Ultimately it comes down to you. Do you do you feel like for you this works? And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter what you label it, right? It doesn’t work ultimately. And I think we have to be careful with when we see. I mean, seeing it in other people is really important because then I’m like, oh, that’s the way that person is. It makes it less personal. But also, I don’t want to get caught into seeing my boss a certain way because certain other people see them that way.
Melody Wilding 00:49:58 Yeah.
Melody Wilding 00:49:59 It’s tricky. It’s tricky.
Eric Zimmer 00:50:00 It sounds like I’m defending bosses everywhere out there. Yes, I am the man. let’s jump to another conversation. And I imagine many people jump to this conversation right away, which is the boundaries conversation about saying no and setting limits without being a jerk. How do we start to walk into this?
Melody Wilding 00:50:23 Yeah. The boundaries conversation. This is one. Yeah. This is one of the most important and most emotionally loaded conversations, because you at once have to straddle this line of, I need to be a collaborative team player, but I don’t want to be a pushover. And how do you do that? How do you push back without being combative? Being labeled difficult. It’s really tough. Yeah. And so most of us, we fall into one one of two extremes. We fall into a fawning reaction where we just say, okay, got it. I’ll figure out how to make it work. Or we fall into the the knee jerk fight reaction of. I can’t believe you’re even asking me this.
Melody Wilding 00:51:05 How dare you? Because you’re just at the end of your rope, and instead of falling into either of those knee jerk responses by yourself, some emotional buffer ask questions first. It seems so foundational, but often what is simple and foundational is not commonplace. It’s not the thing we do most often. But asking questions does a few things. It buys you time to take a deep breath, right? To to even just internally ask, how do I want to show up here? But asking questions does a couple of things. It helps you gather yourself and figure out how do I want to show up here? But it also helps you gather information about the request because on the face of it, you may think, oh, that’s just going to be a waste of my time. But if you ask questions like, who else is involved with this? Who is this visible to? What’s driving the urgency here? You may find out that actually, this is involving some AI tool that we’re trying to stand up and get out really quickly and you think, wow, that would be a great opportunity for me and my team.
Melody Wilding 00:52:10 It’s worth the sacrifice for me to move things around to make space for that. So you get that information you need, or you might get a piece of input that allows you to redirect the request to say, actually, this belongs with operations because this is actually a process they oversee. So ask questions first. That’s your first line of defense. Then there’s several different frameworks in that chapter for pushing back diplomatically and tactfully, because in the workplace, no is not a complete sentence. It is in almost every other aspect of life. But if you imagine that you know your boss or a colleague came to you and asked you to do something for them, and all you said was, no, it just it would not go over well, right? It would not help, would not help build your reputation. So we have to be a bit more diplomatic than that. One of the strategies that I recommended there is called the trade off approach, which is essentially where you say, if we’re going to add this, then something else needs to give.
Melody Wilding 00:53:14 You say that in a more professional manner. You say, I hear this new task is important right now. We have been focused on this other task. What would you like us to deprive prioritize? Or are you comfortable with us slowing down the timeline here, or d scoping some of the features we were planning to work on? So you are creating what in psychology is called a forced choice. As I’ve been talking about this, it’s been really interesting because when I bring this up, people will say, oh, that’s what I do with my kids. It’s what I do with my my toddler. I don’t say, do you want to wear pants today or. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Do you feel like wearing shoes? I ask, do you want to wear your polka dot pants or your pink pants? And so you are framing the discussion as either this or either that, not just this open ended thing. And it also subtly puts the final decision back in the other person’s hand. So you’re also honoring in, in a subtle way, the hierarchy without downplaying yourself because you’re still coming to the table as a problem solver.
Eric Zimmer 00:54:20 I agree. I mean, I as a boss, I have a tendency to not keep incredibly close track of what all I’ve asked somebody to do. Right. Like, it’s just it’s not how my brain works. And so I’ll be like this, and then there’s this, and then there’s this. And if I don’t hear, like, hey, something’s going to give in here, then I may be making choices that I don’t actually even want to be making. Right. And so, I mean, I always say this to Nicole, who will be hearing this is, you know, if I’m putting too much on your plate, like, I need you to tell me that because I won’t intuit it myself often. Sometimes I will, but I often won’t intuit that the eight little requests that I’ve given you suddenly has become a big deal. And so I think that idea of being able to go back to your managing up and saying, well, okay, I’m happy to do whichever of these is most important to you, and we can’t do both of them on this same timeframe.
Eric Zimmer 00:55:18 So which do you feel like is most important? Is a question that a is a subtle pushback, but it’s also giving information that’s useful to whoever’s managing you.
Melody Wilding 00:55:29 Spot on. Spot on. Yes. Again, another example of coming to the table as more of a partner. Right. Because it is it is part of our obligation in our role to surface some of those dependencies and risks. Because just as you said, managers are not omniscient. They are imperfect people. And I do that. I do the exact same thing with my own team. I forget that I said I wanted something three months ago. I said I wanted something done this month, and now they feel like they’re scrambling. So I think there’s there’s something important there for anyone who manages people that we have to give our team permission to manage up to us to say when, when you see a conflict like that, I am depending on you to speak up about that, so please do it.
Eric Zimmer 00:56:16 Calls back to something we said early on in this, which is that this managing up thing is really a I don’t want to say kindness because that’s the wrong word for it, but it’s a very effective strategy of working with your boss.
Eric Zimmer 00:56:33 And it also understands that, like you said, bosses are not omniscient. They are as busy as everyone else is. They are right. Everybody is juggling a lot of things. So I think the ability to advocate for yourself is really important. How do we set if we’re actually going to do that or we do that and we’re still in a more is being demanded of us than we are willing to give situation. What do we do then? Because I can see that. I can see in certain cases somebody being like, well, actually, you know what? I know it’s hard, but they’re both critical right now. I’m going to need them both by Thursday. Yes. Right.
Melody Wilding 00:57:12 Yes. And you frame it in terms of what you can do, not what you can’t do. That’s important. So a classic example is instead of saying I am not available after 6 p.m., PM. I am available until 5:00 pm for this meeting. It it is a subtle shift in the affirmative, but it makes all the difference.
Melody Wilding 00:57:34 So in terms of being given more work, you may say, okay, I hear that. So what we can do is we can have this first phase of this project by this point, and then we’ll have the first phase of this other one by this point. So you’re saying what you can do in the affirmative.
Eric Zimmer 00:57:50 I don’t use this word often, but it’s a helpful little hack, right, for doing that. What is making strategic concessions?
Melody Wilding 00:57:57 Making strategic concessions means again, we’re talking about the hierarchy here. And so power exists in an organization because we need some people with more role power that get other people to do things because of the nature of that role power. When someone asks that of you, you will do something. And so making a strategic concession means that sometimes you have to say yes, but we don’t want to do that all of the time. And so in that chapter I have this other technique called the conditional. Yes. Which is basically saying yes, I am happy to do this now with the understanding that a boundary will come in the future with the understanding of could we sit down next week after we get through this push and talk about how we get ahead of these types of requests going forward, or I’m happy to do this now because I know this is for we’re on a really tight deadline here, but I want to make sure that we both know I can’t always accommodate a less than 24 hour turnaround moving forward.
Melody Wilding 00:58:59 So that’s a strategic concession. It’s a yes. And the boundary.
Eric Zimmer 00:59:04 And it speaks to this thing of recognizing what kind of culture you’re in. I feel like for years I operated both in my own mind and in how I managed people with a we’re just going to get through this push and then but of course, the minute we got through that push, it was just another and then another and then another. And starting to recognize like this is just culturally the way things are. And I mean, I think it falls upon leaders to try and set reasonable expectations to start with. And that also is to get reasonable expectations from the people working for. So I was before I was product management, I did a lot of project management. And I eventually learned just take everything anybody gives you and double it. Like just do it like, I know you don’t want to do it. You don’t want that answer. The answer is you. But people are inclined to be like because they feel the pressure, like, how quickly can you do this? And he’d be like, well, maybe I could do three hours and it’s not realistic.
Eric Zimmer 01:00:10 So I think another part of this managing up where it’s helpful both to you and to the peoples, when you actually say, well, realistically, that’s going to take us six hours. That helps set expectations reasonably and can help move a culture out of the constant push. But there are cultures where the constant push is built in. And I guess your recommendation is you just decide whether that’s the type of work life you want.
Melody Wilding 01:00:35 Yes, there are ways that you can manage within it, just as you were were talking about. Yeah, I use the same tool with my clients. However you long you think something’s going to take, you double it. But also another way you could get ahead of this is in your one on ones. For example, towards the end of that time, asking your manager, hey, what’s coming down the pike? You know what? What are you looking at over the next month or three months in terms of what’s going to trickle down to us in projects? So you can start better anticipating some of that.
Melody Wilding 01:01:09 So you could have some of these proactive conversations earlier and you could be having more of a an alignment conversation before we have to get to a boundaries Conversation.
Eric Zimmer 01:01:20 Before we wrap up, I want you to think about this. Have you ever ended the day feeling like your choices didn’t quite match the person you wanted to be? Maybe it was autopilot mode or self-doubt that made it harder to stick to your goals. And that’s exactly why I created The Six Saboteurs of Self-control. It’s a free guide to help you recognize the hidden patterns that hold you back and give you simple, effective strategies to break through them. If you’re ready to take back control and start making lasting changes. Download your copy now at one Eufy Net e-book. Let’s make those shifts happen starting today. One you feed. Net e-book. Well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, and you and I are going to continue in the post-show conversation, because I want to talk about an idea from your previous book of trust about the sensitive striver, Driver.
Eric Zimmer 01:02:18 The person who is sensitive but also ambitious. And listeners, if you’d like access to that post-show conversation as well as ad free episodes, a special episode I do for you each week called Teaching Song and a poem. And most importantly, to support our show because we can always use the support. Go to one you feed dot net. Join. Melody. Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed this.
Melody Wilding 01:02:42 Thank you.
Eric Zimmer 01:02:42 Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom. One episode at a time.
Eric Zimmer 01:03:14 Thank you for being part of the one You Feed community.
