More Asking, Less Telling: Manager Habits for a Faster-Changing Workplace

Speaker A: One person that comes to mind isn't so much that she was a bad manager. She was so anxious. She carried that energy. It was an energy of angst. So her energy took over the room and I think that it was a, uh, self awareness. She didn't realize, you know, she would get in her head and get really upset about stuff that truly wasn't that big of a deal or it didn't seem so to me. So that lesson in there for me is the self awareness piece. In leadership, we talk a lot about skills or behaviors, but so much of thing that has to start with yourself. And I think even this quote is probably, I think from Stephen Covey. We judge ourselves by our intentions and others judge us by our behaviors.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Leader Lab podcast. I'm Makayla Mathri, chief marketing officer at Life Labs Learning. If you're a senior people leader, you're navigating a workplace that's changing faster than ever. This season we're exploring what it really takes to build resilient and adaptable leaders, managers and teams. Let's dive in. So excited to have with me today on the Leader Lab, Megan Wheeler, who is the director of people development at UH Articulate, where she leads initiatives that, uh, help people and organizations grow, learn and thrive. She's got a background in industrial organizational psychology and nearly two decades of experience in leadership development, coaching and facilitation. Megan's worked with leaders and teams across a wide range of industries to build stronger cultures and more effective workplaces. Megan also spent seven years at Life Labs Learning and she was employee number five where she served as the director of facilitation and leadership training, helping thousands of managers and employees develop practical, science backed leadership skills. She's also the founder and CEO of Spoken, reflecting her passion for communication, connection and human development. Welcome to the Leader Lab, Megan.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Michaela, tell me about kind of like your career arc and when you joined Life Labs, what led up to that?

Speaker A: Moved to New York City right after graduating college and knew I was gonna go to grad school, so I wanted to get some job in the field of organizational psychology. I knew that's what I wanted to go into was leadership development. And so that was something that became clear to me in hindsight. Even as a young kid, I think I played really competitive sports, so I played competitive volleyball m and I'm still to this day, team sports. There's so much of the psychology and around leadership and just how to collaborate and work with other people. But I, I really loved these workshops that we would go to. And I remember really finding it really valuable and actually something that I learned at Life Labs, that has stuck with me. And maybe it's just having that name, but that idea of like, experimentation. Yeah. And I remember Leanne always talking about thinking like a scientist. And I think that's still even probably built into the language of the workshops. This was 2013.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Somebody had mentioned that they went to some workshop and it maybe was in an apartment or like through timeout magazine where. And it was. Leanne was teaching a. It was either the Smells of New York workshop or like a body language workshop. So this was back in the day where Leanne was doing all sorts of fun, uh, bringing in her cognitive psychology to different workshops that you could sign up for through a meetup or something like that.

Speaker B: Yes. And Leanne Renegar, who's one of the founders. Yes, Life Labs.

Speaker A: Yes, exactly. At that point in time, it was really hard for me to find manager training that I thought would, you know, speak to the people.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: It was a lot of people in business suits. Very corporate. Corporate. Corporate. And it was just. Was not the right fit for culturally,

Speaker B: when you're thinking about the profile that we just talked about.

Speaker A: Exactly. And so I found, I reached out to Life Labs, fell in love with them. Tanya Luna was the first person that I was speaking to there who's also a, uh, co.

Speaker B: Founder.

Speaker A: Co founder of Life Labs. And so brought them in and they led our manager trainings and I just, I fell in love with them. They were super actionable.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I didn't know that I wanted to continue like grinding in New York City. So put in my notice and packed up all of my things and I booked a one way ticket to, uh, Asia and told Tanya. I remember having this conversation with Tanya of like, hey, I am leaving. If you at all ever are growing and you're looking for more facilitators, this is exactly the work that I want to be doing. And I'd be interested in staying in touch. And we did. So I remember interviewing while I was living in Indonesia and I was getting my coaching certification out of Singapore. So I, every once a month I would fly to Singapore, go through my coaching certification because it was a five month process and I was interviewing at Life Labs, you know, they offered me the role and I said, great, could I do it remotely? And at that point they're like, no, you gotta come back to New York. So I moved back to New York in 2016.

Speaker B: There's something in there for listeners that I actually, um, have noticed in a number of conversations, um, when it comes to kind of forging your way and finding your career path, planting seeds. So, like that conversation that you had with the Life Labs team, like, listen, I'm doing this thing. I'm going to Indonesia. But I am interested in the work that you all are doing. It's very much just you speaking into existence. Like, I'm interested in this thing. And if something opens up, please let me know. Right. And then they've got you in the back of their head when the time comes up where they're like, oh, we're growing and we've got more clients than we know what to do with them. We got to hire more people. You're, like, on their mind to reach out to. And I think that's just like a little bit advice, especially for folks early career, um, and knowing job searching is really tough right now. Like, put feelers out there, Name the intention. As somebody who's been more on the hiring end a lot more recently, I remember those conversations, the pressure free conversations of like, I interact sometimes it's yeah. With a client or something's. Like, you know what? I really love the work that y' all are doing. If there's ever this role xyz, like I would be interested in that. And you come back to that. I think as, uh, folks who are hiring completely agree.

Speaker A: And I. That I know it's awkward for a lot of people because it feels icky or networky, but that goes back to connection. I think that that's just this through line in my life. And I think what humanity is, is connection. Of course you can get a job.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: People do it. Get a job by randomly applying online in today's market. It's really, really hard. And I look at my career, every single role I've got gotten since my first job has been through someone I knew.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And having these conversations before I was desperate, before I needed something, um, but just really, truly valuing relationships and connections. And it's not always your best friends that are going to be the ones that are going to help you out. Finding the connection with someone, even if it's loose and maintaining that. And even as cringe as, you know, LinkedIn can be, it's still helpful if you work in corporate America to stay connected in that way and use it for what can serve us.

Speaker B: Tell me a little bit about your worst boss story or like the worst experience of a manager.

Speaker A: Not to be all Kumbaya, but I think even my challenging managers, I've learned something from them. But one person that comes to mind isn't so much that she was a bad manager. She was so anxious. She carried that energy. It was an energy of angst. So her energy took over the room. And I think that it was a, uh, self awareness. She didn't realize, you know, she would get in her head and get really upset about stuff that truly wasn't that big of a deal or it didn't seem so to me. Um, and so that lesson in there for me is the self awareness piece. In leadership, we talk a lot about skills or behaviors, but so much of thing, it has to start with yourself. And I think even this quote is probably, I think from Stephen Covey of, we judge ourselves by our intentions and others judge us by our behaviors.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So even with the best intentions, others are just seeing what they see and how you act and how you make them feel. And so I think that to me was. It was hard to work with someone who took themselves so seriously. I think I have a value of play. I take my work very seriously. But I try to have fun while doing it. And I also, from a learning perspective, I don't think people can learn if they're not having a little bit of fun.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Whatever fun is to them.

Speaker B: Yeah. I run the sales team at Life Labs Learning. And one of the things we did in our weekly was set an intention for July. And my intention was to have more self awareness about how I show up and my presence and like, thoughtfulness. And something we oftentimes say at Life Labs is that we're working in hr, not er.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And that is. So that's my kind of like July intention is just like, be aware of how you're showing up. Um, longer pauses, deeper breaths. Because at the end of the day, like, the way I show up not only affects me, but the people around me. And they're queuing off of that.

Speaker A: And I think especially in a remote environment, we don't always realize, or maybe we turn off our camera so we don't get distracted with our own view. We can see those para verbals. We can notice the facial expressions. Absolutely. Especially as leaders. And that's one thing that I think I reflect on from my Life Labs days as well, is I went from studying leadership, researching leadership, telling other people how to be leaders, to then becoming a leader of a team, to then becoming a leader of a department and becoming a mother. Like, there were so many, uh, moments of, damn, you know, this is, this is work to be done. And we are also human if we can build a foundation of trust. If we can build a foundation of, you know, think of that emotional bank account of more times than not, are we showing up for other people? Are we showing up with presence and m. With thoughtfulness? People are going to give us some grace to not be perfect all the time. And I think that was something I had to learn along the way as well.

Speaker B: Tell me a little bit more about going from kind of that research, academic side to the application.

Speaker A: I think about this so much of, you know, my journey of I had work experience and then I went to grad school. And I got frustrated with grad school, to be perfectly honest, because the research in psychology, as a lot of us know, if you go into the research, is often conducted on college freshmen who want a couple extra bucks to take a survey. And so you really have to be thoughtful of the research that you're looking at. So that sense of, you know, there's basic research, there's applied research, so many researchers now are really able, with data to get into organizations, which is, uh, really interesting to me. So then I come to Life Labs, where I'm taking my understanding of best or better practices that you learn in academia, but also my understanding that, like, it's not always perfect in organizations. And then I go to Life Labs, where the frameworks that Life Labs teaches that are built and based on meta analyses of research and then put into practice with the organizations that Life Labs works with, those frameworks were, hands down, more impactful than grad school.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: And I'm not trying to knock grad school. Yeah, I learned a lot. The simplicity of those frameworks and then seeing them go into action was really helpful. All right, so then go into becoming a leader. And the thing that I think I realized is that these, and I think about this now in terms of programs that I create, is that you are also operating within a system and you can't do one and not the other. You can't just teach behaviors and expect that everything will shift. You have to have a really good understanding of the system that is being modeled by. By leaders. You have to have access to those leaders, I think, so that there's that trust built. And so when I was in a leadership position at Life Labs, one of the things that I thought was so helpful is that there was no manipulating, there was no tricking anyone, and everyone knew what you were doing. You know, you're using the language, but the language that was just naturally built because it's what we teach at Life Labs did make it a lot Easier to be able to, let's say, de blur feedback. Like I can just give feedback more directly. I can talk about my most important things, my MITs. And that was easier to do. And also leading is really hard to do because sometimes, especially in a department, you don't have the control over the full system. That was a lesson that I think I learned from an empathy perspective. Whether it's, you know, cognitive or emotional empathy. I was so intertwined with the care for my team. I learned that lesson, I think the hard way is like, oh, this is a business. This is a business that has to operate. I'm not there as the leader of this department to just defend my department. I have to really think about the impact on the full business and how do we collaborate. So there's multiple teams that you play on when you're in a leadership role, especially at a larger organization. Yeah.

Speaker B: Was it Jim Collins, the concept of first team?

Speaker A: I think Patrick Lencioni.

Speaker B: You're right, right? Uh, yes. Yeah. Five dysfunctions. That is something I oftentimes think about when you're in a leadership role. So that concept of first team is basically like just what Megan's M. Talking about, that in a leadership role, in my role as an executive, you have to keep the business top of mind and your first team is your leadership cohort and not your direct reports or the department you're leading. And that is something that I think a lot of leaders have a hard time with because you're in the day to day with your department and candidly, like you want to feel good and look good and get good responses from your direct reports because you're interacting with them so much more frequently, I think. But at the end of the day, like holding the business top of mind and the outcomes for the broader business is your role in leadership. And I oftentimes think of that as like context switching. Like you have to switch context. Like I think it's so critical in a business to have a united first team. Like we are all smart. Right. And you pick up on dysfunction at a leader. Like any employee, if you've ever had a job anywhere, you've picked up on the dysfunction.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: At the leadership level because you'll see it in different ways. You'll hear your department head not talking well of other functions within the business and that kind of like bleeds down into the organization. But it's a hard lesson to learn. Honestly, something I'm still learning like that is something I talk with my team about often is. Like so much of this is iterative. And maybe that's the concept you were talking about too, that the founders of Life Labs so clearly honed in on. Like, it's all a grand experiment.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, like we really. A lot of this is like trial and error and. Absolutely. There's best practices and there's research and science that we can fall back on. And at the end of the day, like, we are all dynamic individuals making up very dynamic organizations.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Tell me a little bit about Articulate, what the company does. I think many will be familiar, but for those that aren't, your current role and kind of what you've been navigating there since you joined a few years ago.

Speaker A: Yeah. So Articulate is, I would say, one of the world's leading platform softwares for elearning, for training. And so I was super interested in learning more about that side of learning and development. And one thing this might sound, maybe ignorant on my part.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, but coming from a background in organizational psychology and having L and D roles, learning and development roles, prior to Life Labs and working in organizations, I didn't realize how much L and D work is through online training. Especially when we're working and talking about larger organizations in multiple languages and enablement. That needs to happen really rapidly. And so I wanted to learn more about that side of the business. And lucky enough, through someone I knew who knew someone who was working there, she had heard about a role. Through the interview process. I fell in love with the humans that I was interviewing with. I realized how much I missed a team.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And there is something about being on the inside where kind of going back to that impact, where I can see some of that impact, take work a little bit further. And so I joined a couple of years ago, um, knowing that a big area that they wanted to focus on was manager training.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Leadership development.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I said, okay, I can do that.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Basically took a lot of my background, my experiences at Life Labs and got to full autonomy. Thankful to the leaders at Articulate for knowing that it's important and giving me, trusting me to just develop a program that can help support a shift in terms of establishing expectations for leaders. We built out a full program where we are a fully remote company. We decided to fly folks in to a two day in person meetup really focused around how do you harness psychological safety, how do you learn how to coach employees, how do you give feedback? And then we put managers into a bit of an experiment themselves or design thinking workshop where they had to solve some business problems.

Speaker B: Oh, I like that.

Speaker A: Uh, where the people team would then go back and work to implement. So something that came out of that was, you know, our review process, our performance reviews, really finding how do we meet people more in the moment while not being a distraction, really allow for folks to on a regular basis pause and really think about having those conversations versus an annual performance review.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: Which was a huge heavy lift. Also not always the best approach. When you have to think back to 11 months ago, how he was operating something that uh, I've enjoyed that program. So we actually limited it so that it was fairly small, no more than 40 people.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: In each session. So we ran a few of them.

Speaker B: Okay. And was that just managers or senior leaders? Like what was the mix that you had had?

Speaker A: It was any people manager. So for some of them, and this is. We also experimented with, if we had the right amount, we would separate a table of more of our senior leaders where they could start to really have conversations of like what is it like to manage managers? We're asking managers these questions. And there was some really good cross functional learning. I think that came from that. And then in some situations we actually put them at tables with folks. And then that also created some learning dynamic, different dynamics. Every one of our CT members came, we had, they had their own cohort where we asked them not only to participate but also to share. Like what are their hopes, what were their experiences, what did they learn? And then coming back from that, that's where we really start to build on the connections that are made. And I think I noticed that while even working at Life Labs is that the skills are so important. Um, the practice in those sessions is so important, but then the connections made where you have an engineering manager and a sales manager realizing oh, like our roles are different but we actually struggle with some very similar things and connecting and kind of breaking down some walls or silos that people tend to operate in can be just as if not more beneficial afterwards. So then I take folks through some smaller post meetup groups where we kind of hone in on practicing those skills. But uh, also having a chance to bring real issues and get some feedback, coaching advice from. From other leaders in a smaller setting where you've already established maybe some trust, some rapport.

Speaker B: M Tell us about the decision to do the on sites in person.

Speaker A: That's a good question. I actually didn't think I was going to get the buy in to do it in person. We are a fully remote company. Articulate has been remote since the beginning.

Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah.

Speaker A: So so much of the culture is Comfortable and familiar with being remote. So I wasn't sure I was going to get the buy in, but when we pitched this to the C team and really talked about a minimizing distraction, that's a big one.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Uh, when you've got folks who are just also used to working, you're not going to compete with Slack. You're not going to compete with, uh, getting the some work done. Humans are still human and there is something to be said about being able to be in contact with, with other humans and it creates an experience. So this goes from just creating like trainings or workshops to really thinking about the full experience design, which was really, really fun. Think about the, what you want people to feel. How do you kind of handle more of the sensory learning than just what you can get into Zoom? And I really just, I think I commend our leadership team for. I mean, it's an investment and I don't know that every company is in a place to make that kind of investment, but it really speaks to value that the leadership team has on the culture, the people, and also like the business reason. Humans are the most valuable resource companies have. And if you're not going to invest in the humans, and particularly you know that that leader is your multiplier. It's the multiplier. It's the biggest roi. It's like, that's like you can speak in business language of like, this is your best investment is to actually take these leaders off for two days.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Connect with each other, build those connections in a way that they would never be able to do in a Zoom meeting.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Because it's all of the things that happen maybe in between the sessions and the lunch, conversations and hearing stories also there. We build in some vulnerability intentionally into that where you can see each other more as humans versus what we do over Zoom.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I think that's so interesting. And I do actually want to shift gears and chat a little more about the role of AI and kind of the transformation we're in. But what I heard you say is like the component. And one part of bringing people together in person is thinking about the experience and the transformation that happens when people are together in person. And it is not possible to replicate that, I think in a virtual environment. I think you can have elements of it. We did something similar this year for the first time at Life Labs, uh, but we brought our sales team together in April in Nashville. And it was twofold for us. It was absolutely some skill building. And there are some things we're working to do at Life Labs within the sales role. And so there was some real practical skill building that we wanted to do together, but it was also just building connection and rapport because we all work remotely and we're fully distributed. And that time for just like, tell me about your life life, not your work life. Mhm. Is so like, the moments for me that actually stand out from that time in Nashville were like the coffee conversations. And we did a really amazing activity called Lifeline, which I'll share with listeners. Actually, I really recommend this if you've got a small enough group of people that it makes sense. But where we basically started out the morning, and this is very Life Labs of us, I got this from Burton Goldfield, who's one of our board members. We started out, it was like over coffee and everybody got a piece of paper. We drew a line down the piece of paper, and I gave folks some thinking time, like 10 to 15 minutes. And you can get as personal or not, like totally open. And we try and create a safe space like Vegas rules, but. And on this piece of paper, you plot your highs above the line and then you plot your lows below the line and you try to limit it to like three to five. And then we went around the circle and we shared some of these, like, distinct moments in our lives with each other. And it was fascinating to me because at that point I'm like, oh, I've worked with some of these people for two and a half years, but I really don't know much about them. Like, and I also, the way that I operate in the workplace is very like, business business. Like, I'm kind of like, here's the task at hand. And I love working with people on the task at hand, but oftentimes I don't get too far outside of that. And so that stood out to me so much from that time in Nashville, which was just like, beyond, you know, these individuals I get to see on a, uh, daily basis who are incredible and do really good work, there is so much more to us that we are bringing to that screen or that facilitated meeting that is like what fuels me. So I oftentimes also think about the value of in person is just engagement. Yeah, it helps you engage in a way and it, it keeps you going in a way that you're just not going to get without that investment. So kudos to the leadership, uh, articulate for investing in that as well. Megan has some great posts on LinkedIn for our listeners, so. Oh, so Megan, this will pressure you to post more. Right? Okay. You wrote AI is a superpower. It accelerates insight, sharpens thinking, personalizes development, and removes friction from how we learn. It can help us practice, draft, reflect, synthesize and explore faster than ever before. And yet, the more powerful our tools become, the more intentional we have to be about designing for what AI can't replace in a remote AI enabled environment. I am doubling down on live dialogue over passive consumption, naming tensions in real time, practicing feedback and community, creating spaces where people feel seen, challenged and supported. Slowing down enough for reflection with others. Because learning isn't just information transfer, it's identity work. It's courage, it's belonging, it's being witnessed as you grow. If AI expands our cognitive capacity, then human connection expands our developmental capacity. That was good. That was pretty good. Do you know who wrote that? I am a hundred times more productive than I've ever been in my career. Every single person on my team is. Yes, right, yes. So there's just this absolute limitless potential that I think about, and yet we still need each other. And so tell me a little bit about this. Like AI expanding our capacity while that human connection expanding our developmental capacity.

Speaker A: So there's one side, which is that I immediately think you go back to how researchers look at management or the jobs to be done. You think of these are the skills or the jobs to be done. AI can be so helpful with the jobs to be done. I have felt that. But there's another element to getting work done, which is relationships. M and there's a lot to say that humans aren't perfect at relationships for sure. And we're training these models which actually have been shown to be more empathetic than the humans that have trained them. We get work done through other humans and with other humans. And so that is so imperative to thinking about those as skill sets because you know, how work is going to get done is going to continue to evolve, but we have to be able to do it with other humans. And I think there is lots of opportunity here for not just leaders, but knowledge workers, workers in general, to really, again, go back to the connections we have with other humans and lean on each other in those relationships. I also think about a little bit of, I guess, nerves. I have what's happen with AI and I even see it with myself. You know, the classic example of Google Maps. I cannot drive around anymore without my Google Maps, right? And sometimes I'll play a game with myself of, uh, can I get there without it? And then I start, I get nervous and I'm like, well, is that like an efficiency thing. Like, maybe if I just didn't have to get anywhere in a hurry, I would, you know, make some wrong turns and learn something new. And like, we used to do that all the time.

Speaker B: Yes, yes. And then you become overly dependent on it. Similarly, I can't even get around New York anymore without Google Maps, which is wild. Cause I'm like, Manhattan's a grid. Like, it really should be hard.

Speaker A: Even's running east. We got this. Yes.

Speaker B: When I first moved there, right. I was like, I could find my way on a bike all over the city. And now I go back for work often and I'm like, where's 5th Ave? Like, uh, it's so true. You really kind of become dependent. So you think about the implications of that. Like if we start to outsource some

Speaker A: of this, too much of the cognitive thinking, um, we're doing ourselves a disservice. I think it's kind of like that Einstein's two minute rule where it's if a job takes two minutes or less, just do it. Otherwise, write it down. There's gonna be benefits to definitely using AI for things that we want to consciously outsource. I hope if I can watch this episode, you know, in the future, I hope my future me can watch this and say, okay, I really tried to stay true to still using my cognitive functioning for the things that I feel I uniquely can add to spreadsheet formulas is not something that I really want to at this point, spend too much time thinking about. I will gladly let Gemini tell me about that formula and then repeat it on the spreadsheet and allow me to do things that I couldn't, like I could never do before. That's not a skill set that I have. Project management is also something that I don't think is a strength of mine.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, I'm really good at big picture ideating and visioning something up and I can sort of break it down. But then now using AI to project manage it helps me at least stay honest.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: To where I know that for me, my brain gets really excited to start things.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: I don't love seeing things through and like, finishing them.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So if there's a human that also like, likes taking those details and finishing it, then that's awesome to partner with. And then if there isn't that other human, then where can AI help Keep me accountable and send me the reminders.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And keep me. Give me the deadlines.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: That I found really helpful.

Speaker B: In true Life Labs fashion, we're m gonna do A leader lab lightning round. So you've got three seconds to answer these. Complete the sentence. Great. Managers do more blank and less blank.

Speaker A: More asking and less telling.

Speaker B: That's good. The most underrated leadership skill, according to

Speaker A: you, is MITs, which means most important things. M. Knowing them, asking them, aligning on them.

Speaker B: You know, a manager is growing when

Speaker A: they stop blank having all of the right answers.

Speaker B: One word your team or colleagues would use to describe you.

Speaker A: So funny.

Speaker B: I would use that word. I like that.

Speaker A: So she's so funny.

Speaker B: That's two words technically.

Speaker A: Okay. Funny, funny.

Speaker B: Like, emphasis.

Speaker A: Really? M. Dash funny.

Speaker B: A leadership book, podcast, or creator that you're loving right now. Ooh.

Speaker A: The Curiosity Shop with Renee Brown and Adam Grant.

Speaker B: Tell us about this. If listeners aren't familiar.

Speaker A: So this is, uh, newer. They have combined forces, and they have a podcast. They're on hiatus for the summer right now. Fantastic episode came out a few weeks ago with Simon Sinek around. The biggest, like, leadership strategy is people. And so it's literally Brene Brown, wonderful M researcher, Adam Grant, wonderful researcher, who I both have, like, personal tension with because I'm like, oh, I can't like pop psychology, but it is so useful. M. And they just riff with each other and they have a funny relationship where they had, like, a LinkedIn battle.

Speaker B: Interesting. Okay.

Speaker A: And then they got to know each other, and now they have the Curiosity Shop.

Speaker B: Oh, I like it. Okay.

Speaker A: I love.

Speaker B: One thing managers should stop doing immediately.

Speaker A: One thing managers should stop doing immediately is using AI to write any kind of personal message to their direct reports.

Speaker B: You've seen examples of this?

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if you want to use it to help you craft, um, a difficult message, for sure. But don't copy, paste, feedback.

Speaker B: Give it, receive it, or avoid it all.

Speaker A: Give and receive, Ask for it, give it, feedback, love it. Like, you cannot get enough of it.

Speaker B: The biggest leadership myth is it's easier

Speaker A: the more you know you go up in your career, or you get more answers you actually like. Things get way harder and you have way more questions, and you just become okay with that.

Speaker B: The strongest signal that a company has a healthy culture.

Speaker A: The leaders are modeling what you want to see from everyone.

Speaker B: And where do you see that come through? Like, in what ways and what spaces?

Speaker A: Language is a big one. When I think about, uh, looking at a healthy culture are people using the similar language. You don't want to see any weaponization of language.

Speaker B: One meeting rule. Everyone should adopt tomorrow, end with next

Speaker A: steps, because everyone's going back to back meetings. Don't create these Open loop, end with next steps.

Speaker B: Without naming anybody, what's the best leadership lesson you've learned from a bad manager?

Speaker A: Don't take yourself so seriously. Like have some fun.

Speaker B: We ask the same question to all of our guests on the podcast because we want to provide some really tangible takeaways for listeners. What's one small behavioral shift that you'd recommend for listeners who want to build more resilient, adaptable teams? Something that they could try tomorrow?

Speaker A: I worry I've already said it like three times in this M podcast. Yeah, the MIT M method is not only do I personally fundamentally have to come back to this and remember this, but I hear this from execs executives all the time is just knowing what your most important things are and asking that of your team, making sure that they know what's yours. So there's just alignment. Especially right now. The pace of change is so intense. The amount of times we talk about AVUCA environment, you know, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, things shift all the time. And you know, if you go quarter to quarter to make your grand, your okrs, your goals, and maybe that works for you, but things are going to shift way faster than you have three months. So continuously just aligning with what are your most important things this week, today, uh, having that, a practice of that as a leader, I think is, is incredible. And being able to communicate that and align with a team, I think it's one small shift that can have a huge impact.

Speaker B: That's such a great recommendation. Can you give us an example of like where and how you could implement the MIT framework if you're in a leadership, like when does that come into play?

Speaker A: 1 on ones like an easy way. So one thing you can do for yourself is just set a calendar block every morning, or maybe it's a calendar block before you close your laptop at the end of the day. Okay, what are all the things I thought I was going to get done today that all the fires showed up and I didn't get to what are my MITs for tomorrow? Maybe that's a self practice, the first thing in the morning. But then use your one on ones. Like uh, that's just, you know, you can go into what are your MITS this week? Okay, here are mine, here's what's top of mind for me, here's what's shifted. And so one on ones are an easy way to implement those. I've also seen teams do this over slack asynchronously. I remember working at Life Labs and I learned one team and I still think about this. They have. You can write it into a slack flow, um, where a bot asks you Monday morning What are your MITs? And then the whole team shares the MITs. Friday there's another slack flow where you ask about how those were followed up. So you can build in automations if you want to and then also just, just use your one on ones.

Speaker B: And I think you named something that's really important here too, which is, um, sometimes they shift. And so naming that shift like it's indisputable. The rate of change is incredible right now and resilient organizations are adapting, iterating, experimenting. But as a leader, you're going to drive people absolutely insane if you're not communicating. Like, yeah, this was the most important thing last week and this week it's this.

Speaker A: Or like why?

Speaker B: And here's why. And here's where we're going. Like, I think there's so much there. Maybe one final question for you. Your favorite Life Labs workshop, I would

Speaker A: say here's the one. I'll. I'll say even though I literally think about all of them, all up to teaching them at that pace for seven and a half years, they're in my sleep.

Speaker B: Yes. Yes. You're having dreams about tipping point skills.

Speaker A: But I would say, yes, I do, I do still. I would say the time management workshop only because it surprised me. I was one that uh, I thought, oh, that's so boring.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So dry. Nobody wants to like learn time management.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And I fell in love with this workshop. It changed my life. So did James Clear Atomic Habits.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: That book came out a while ago. It made me realize that time management can actually be fun. And it, because it gamifies your day where you could really have like, what do you have control over?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: What do you not have control over? And literally gamifying productivity. My brain, Something about my brain. And the dopamine that I get by getting things done.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Is really fun. And then being able to teach that to other people.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: In a fun way.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Was, was awesome.

Speaker B: I love that. And it comes back to what you said earlier, which is like bringing the playfulness into work. Um, and your advice too, like, don't take yourself so seriously. And that's like a very tangible workshop. Um, and how to do that and like have some fun because at the end of the day we spend a lot of our time in the workplace.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Megan, it was so lovely having you on the leader lab.

Speaker A: Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: So enjoyed this time and thank you for the warm welcome to Charleston. I appreciate that we got to do this in person.

Speaker A: Me too.

Speaker B: It was, like, really nice.