I had just finished teaching the first session of the latest Manager Operating System cohort. I stuck around on the Zoom call to debrief with my coach, Izzy.
The session went well, but honestly? I was feeling pretty deflated.
I knew from interviewing other course instructors that first lessons get the lowest ratings. I also knew my first session lays the foundation for everything else. It takes time to build on these concepts before students really get them.
Still felt discouraging.
So there I was, going over the session with Izzy. At the time, I didn't know how those ratings would completely change. And Izzy shared exactly what I needed. Some tips I'd given others but couldn't see in myself. Others were completely new ways to look at growing leaders.
These lessons? They apply to you too.
As a manager, you're a part-time teacher. That's part of what makes this job so exciting and infuriating. You have to be Everything Everywhere All At Once. Sometimes you're a teacher. When you manage managers you're both a teacher and teaching the teachers.
Warning: this post might make your head spin. See if you can count all the different levels of meta.
Practice What You Preach
As managers, we lead whether we want to or not. Sheryl Sandberg told a great story to drive this point home at Meta. It's the story of the "Gold Problem."
It was 1990 and Ron Rubin was ramping up as the new CEO of Goldman Sachs. Each day he toured a different part of the business. One day he walked the trading floor. Standing behind one of the analysts, he casually mentioned that "gold looks interesting." At the end of the week, he reviewed the company's books and noticed something strange. For some reason, the company owned a large amount of gold. After some digging, it turned out that his casual remark earlier in the week led to the analysts buying tons of gold. Because that's what they thought their new CEO wanted.
Sheryl shared this as a cautionary tale to us managers. As leaders, people look up to us. They listen when we talk, even when it's a joke or an offhand remark. They notice what we say, how we say it, and what we don't say. Your team will invent meaning to your actions (or inaction) in ways that you can't even anticipate.
My interpretation of this has always been a defensive one. Minimize jokes. Try to be on your best behavior at all times. Be cautious about how you react when you're surprised. It was only Izzy's feedback that made me look at this leadership challenge in a different light. I shouldn't fight this reality. I should embrace it.
When you can't change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails."
-- H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Instead of always having a background thread that's worrying about all the ways that people will misinterpret my behaviors, I should tackle this challenge on the main thread. I need to pre-compute ways to leverage this reality.
You need to prepare a script.
This is what I did before our second session. After gathering the rating for the first session, I followed up in private to drill down into the challenges and strengths. This led to concrete lessons, most of which I could address by our second session. Previous version of me would have left it at that. But I knew that one of the topics for the second session was about earning trust. And this was the perfect opportunity.
I talked openly about what I learned. I was honest about what I could have done better and focused on what I learned. Then, I climbed the meta-ladder and talked about how this is what leaders should do to earn trust. This was an example of what the students can do in their own job.
Then Izzy upped it a notch.
Tell Them What Showed Told Them
Here's what Izzy taught me.
When you show leadership by example, most people miss it.
The challenge with the Gold Problem isn't just that people will misinterpret you. It's that you have no way of knowing if your intentional examples even landed. You showed them something valuable, but did they notice the lesson?
So talk about it.
You already showed. Now you tell.
When I talked to the students about the changes I made based on their feedback, I told them that this was an example of how they should share their mistakes with their teams. Of how this was a tool for earning trust. I made this lesson explicit.
I also told them that this was another example of "practice what you preach." That this is an example of taking ownership of how you show up. Because managers are teachers, so we have to climb the meta ladder.
One key point. You should tell, not shout. Make it a side-lesson. Call it out briefly, then return to your main focus.
Expectations
Back to that first lesson. There were tangible ways to make it stronger. It also had an inherent challenge. I teach a foundational system that enables the rest of the course. It takes several interactions before everything clicks.
It's an inherent part of these systems.
That doesn't mean that I can't do better. Because as leaders, we have two fundamental levers that we can pull. We can influence reality and we can influence expectations. Reality and expectations.
All of suffering happens in the gap between expectations and reality
-- Poppy James
Before big meetings or high-stakes interactions, you need to figure out what expectations you need the other humans to have at the end. Then, you need to create a communication plan so that you can create this alignment on expectations.
For me, this means over-communicating on the outcomes of the first session. I did talk about it, but mentioning something once is a rookie management mistake. I should have talked about it multiple times. I should have repeated it verbally and in writing. In the syllabus, the written material, and the summary. I should have made it very clear what to expect at the end of the first session versus the end of the course overall.
Managing expectations means narrowing the gap between the expectations and reality. It means reducing suffering in the world, and that is a worthy goal any time.
Your Action Items
How can you apply these lessons in your job?
Think about your next large meeting. This could be a presentation to senior leadership or your daily standup. Go over the topics on your agenda and plan ahead. What can you do or say to "practice what you preach"?
For example, let's say that the team needs to manage time more proactively. How can you manage time in the meeting more deliberatly? If you never finish your sprint tickets, can you manage the next standup so that you go through all the topics on schedule? How do you make that happen? Then, mention that you used the standup as an example of proactively managing time.
What are some possible pain-points that may come out of the next meeting? Which of these pain points can you solve? For the remaining points, how can you proactively manage expectations?
In our example, you may need to cut people off in the middle or ask them to get to the point. If that's not how your regular stand-ups run, then you have to reset expectations. Call it out at the start of the standup. Then, for the first few times you interject, repeat the new expectations.
When I applied these lessons, I could see the results by the end of the next session. Student rating went up, exceeding my expectations. The great thing is that preparing my script of what to share for each session takes just a few moments. It usually comes up naturally during my runs or when I'm doing the dishes.
Are you going to try this out?