625: Melody Wilding - Effectively Managing Up, Designing Your 1:1s, Getting Paid What You're Worth, Creating The 1 Pagers, & Earning The Triple Win

Go to www. LearningLeader.com https://www. LearningLeader.com for full show notes The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Notes: "I sensed something was terribly wrong when I dialed into the conference line at 8:00 a.m. and heard an unfamiliar voice. "Hi, Mel ody, I'm Janine. I'm with an external HR firm. Unfortunately, this call is to let you know that your employment has been terminated, effective immediately." Managing up is not kissing up. Managing up is strategically navigating relationships with those who have more positional power than you, namely your boss. It's a critical skill set for maneuvering through the complex web of power dynamics, conversations, and unspoken expectations that shape our daily work lives. The triple win – What is something you can do that is good for you, good for your boss, and good for the company? Focus on those issues and solving those problems, and good things will happen for you as you grow your career. Like Carly Fiorina. Run towards the fire. Solving those tough problems will help you, your boss, and your company Meeting with a CEO. Connect what you did with what matters. Adapt your communication to that. Have upward empathy. Put yourself in their shoes. What matters to them? Prior to the meeting, meet with their Chief of Staff. Anticipate objections and answer them before they are asked. Create a one-pager for your boss when they are doing your performance review. Highlight your wins. Remind them. Make it easy on them. Do what Lee Rivas told me to do. Every week, send an email with bullet points for all the things you did to help your boss and the company. For the one pagers - be proactive, start with wins, results and outcomes. it's not self-promoting; it's informing. Identify 1-3 key areas where you need their support. Help them become a trusted advisor or partner. Design your 1:1. Send them the topics to talk about so you can drive those discussions. Make their life easier. They have enough other things to worry about. Feedback can only happen after alignment, styles, ownership, boundaries... They go in order. Define your A B Cs Assumptions, Behaviors, Change you want to see The advancement conversation - Be open, and share what you want to do and how you can get there. My Dustyn Kim example and how I messed it up. The Money conversation - You don't get a raise just because time has passed. It has to be tied to results. Don't talk about the past and what you've done. Talk about what you can do to earn the company more. Don't do the "I deserve this" thing. Bosses hate that. Managing up is not kissing up. Managing up is strategically navigating relationships with those who have more positional power than you, namely your boss. It's a critical skill set for maneuvering through the complex web of power dynamics, conversations, and unspoken expectations that shape our daily work lives. Everything changes when you understand the art and science of influencing others while keeping your own emotions and insecurities in check. "Managing up isn't really about making your boss's life easier. It's about taking control of your own work experience." 10 Key Conversations: The Alignment Conversation How can I get in my boss's head to understand their needs, motivations, and goals? The Styles Conversation Will I earn more respect from my manager if I get to the point quickly, or should I try swapping stories and building rapport? The Ownership Conversation How can I solve the problems that make my job frustrating? How can I seize opportunities without stepping on toes? The Boundaries Conversation How do I say no and push back with tact when my manager saddles me with yet another task? The Feedback Conversation How can I respectfully and effectively give my manager feedback in order to improve processes and communication? The Networking Conversation How can I build other allies in the workplace? How can I turn day-to-day interactions into opportunities that open doors? The Visibility Conversation How can I effectively advocate for myself and show off my strengths? The Advancement Conversation What do I need to do to get to the next level? The Money Conversation When is the right time to negotiate salary? How can I make sure I am getting the compensation I deserve?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  You have to practice some upward empathy to put yourself in their shoes, to think about from a strategic perspective. So much of successfully managing up comes down to saving the people around you cognitive energy.

• 0:17Ryan Hawk?

  This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you want to learn more about the CEO, Burt Bean, and Chief Revenue Officer, Sam Kaufman, check out episode 424. We had a fantastic conversation talking about my partnership with the great people at Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic.

• 1:02Ryan Hawk?

  Visit insightglobal.com/learningleader today to learn more. That's insightglobal.com/learningleader.

• 1:14Ryan Hawk?

  Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Text HAWK to 66866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how our book, The Score That Matters, will help you become a more effective leader. Text HAWK to 66866. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. Melody Wilding is a professor of human behavior at Hunter College.

• 1:55Ryan Hawk?

  Her background as a therapist and emotions researcher informs her unique approach, weaving evidence-based neuroscience and psychology with professional development. She is the author of a few books. Trust yourself and most recently managing up how to get what you need from the people in charge. During our conversation, we discussed why it's worth it to get good at managing up. Also, she dispels why some think managing up is kissing up. That is absolutely not the case. If you want to build a great career, you got to get good at managing up. Then how to get what you need from people in power, how to give useful feedback to your boss, whether they're a good

• 2:40Ryan Hawk?

  one or not, how to present to a powerful person like a CEO, and she shares great examples here, and how to ask for more money. We talk about that and so much more. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Melody Wilding.

• 3:03Ryan Hawk?

  I want to go back to earlier part of your career and I am going to tee it up and then have you finish this story and then share some of the key learnings from it if you're cool with it. So you say, "I sensed something was terribly wrong when I dialed into the conference line at 8:00 AM and heard an unfamiliar voice." Hi, Melody. I'm Janine. I'm with an external HR firm. What happened next?

• 3:34Speaker 00

  What happened next took me by complete surprise. I think the moral of this story is that it shouldn't have taken me by surprise. And you might imagine, you know, if anyone has been in that situation where you get that 8:00 AM or that 5:00 PM call on your calendar that you don't quite know what it's for. And long story short, I was laid off. My role was eliminated. And why I say the moral of the story is that I should have seen that coming is that I was not really paying attention enough to what was happening around me. I wasn't reading the room and understanding the dynamics. I was heads down doing my job, yet what I had failed to realize was that I was working on a project that was

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Really my manager's baby and it was interesting. It was an innovation initiative. It was exciting. It fit within my skill set. But within the rest of the company, it was seen as this side project. It was seen as this tertiary thing that eventually as time went on, I started to pick up more and more that people were seeing this as a money pit. And when I went that after that happened and I started to reflect on how did I get here? Because my performance reviews were positive. People seemed to like me and enjoy having me in the company. My manager had good feedback. And so that's why it felt so blindsiding.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  But as I put the pieces together, more and more people started to say, well, we really need to focus on the core business. And the subtext of that was your project is not focusing on the core business and adding to the impact and the bottom line and the vision not aligning with the vision of where we want to go. And so it was a big, big learning lesson for me to not only be aligned with my manager, but also within the organization more broadly. And that was my own personal wake up call of how in that way I had failed to manage up.

• 5:38Ryan Hawk?

  Why did you fail to manage up when you, your boss probably liked, your boss even said, I'm so sorry, like whispered it. I remember reading in your book. So your boss probably felt awful. You were aligned with your boss. So it feels like you were doing a good job of managing up, but why do you say you weren't?

• 5:57Speaker 00

  And this is, I think, a nuance to what it means to manage up today versus how we historically have thought about it, which is please your boss, make them happy, do what they want you to do. And again, as I reflected on this, I see this very clearly in hindsight. But my intuition was telling me something wasn't quite right, especially as time went on. I felt more and more and more kind of pushed sidelined really is the best word for it. And I didn't have the courage to say something about that. I just sort of kept my mouth shut, did a good job, had my one on ones with my manager, reported on what I was doing, but I didn't push her.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  I didn't push her on, well, what are the real results we need to be seeing from this? And how are we sharing this with the leadership? And tying this into the objectives that we're trying to reach? I didn't have those hard conversations. And that's what managing up really is. It's about being able to create the conditions for your success. Even if that means you have to give tough feedback, you have to say no and push back on yet another demand. And in my case, it would have involved asking some of those more difficult questions. And I sort of alluded to this a moment ago, but managing up has to extend beyond your boss.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  There's this idea that if you just have a strong relationship with your manager, everything else will fall into place. But I'm sure as many people listening know, especially in today's world where you're on project assignments, you're in a matrixed environment, there's a reorg happening once, twice, every year. Your manager may change. You may never be able to build a really strong relationship with your manager. And there's always other influencers in the mix. And that was something else I had failed to do was build relationships beyond my boss. So she was my single point of failure. Yes, she was a strong advocate for me, but not enough. That wasn't enough.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  When time came for cuts, I say in the book, I had no one else who knew my work and my character and who I was enough to want to take me onto their team. And so all of that was a big learning lesson about also thinking about managing up more broadly.

• 8:20Ryan Hawk?

  I love that point as far as it goes well beyond your boss and building real genuinely mutually beneficial relationships throughout an organization. If it's a place where you want to stay, then that's a big part of managing up. And it's not just managing up, it's like managing around. I think that's big. One of the reasons, Melody, that when your team reached out that I was really excited to talk to you is because I do have some friends in life and colleagues I've worked with that when they hear the phrase, that's the title of your book, they cringe a little bit, or they think of they're just a kiss up. And I completely disagree. I've gotten in arguments with people about this, about the fact that they say, oh, he's just good at managing up.

• 9:04Ryan Hawk?

  That's why he got promoted over the person who should have got it right. They like make it seem like a bad thing if somebody is good at this very necessary skill. So that's why honestly, we're having this conversation is because you've written a full book about this. It's really about developing and designing your dream career, I think, beyond just managing up. So can we take a higher look at this? How do you define managing up? And why is it actually a good skill to get good at?

• 9:38Speaker 00

  And what you said is so important because our mindset or our beliefs about a situation then dictate our behavior, right? We look for information to confirm those beliefs. And so if you think managing up, if learning this skill set is going to turn you into someone you don't want to be, well, you're not going to do it. And what I have seen is that takes people out of the running for opportunities they are overqualified for, or getting their ideas heard over somebody else. And I define managing up in the book as, very simply put, navigating your relationships with higher ups, primarily your manager. But of course, that extends beyond them. That is different from

• 10:20Speaker 00

  becoming just a professional pushover or a blowhard. And you and I, and I'm sure your team, because we not only work with people who want to improve in this area, but we also sit on the other side of the table. And we work with executives and C-suite and leaders who have people managing up to them. I would love to hear your perspective on this, but I certainly hear all the time that those people, those people who are truly the suckups. Tend to flare out, tend to, people tend to figure them out that they're all talk, no substance. They have a lot of volume, but they don't have a lot of value behind that.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  And I think more than ever, managing up is really about navigating the people dynamics and the psychology of what's happening around you. It's no longer enough to just be technically strong, right? We could get into a whole conversation about how AI is starting to replace a lot of those capabilities. And so what will differentiate you is your relational abilities. The capability to see around corners and read between lines, to adapt your message, to be able to motivate people when you don't have positional authority. All of that is going to matter so much more. And what I want to say to anyone who has said, this isn't for me. I don't want to become that person.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  If you are someone who regards yourself as having emotional intelligence, then you have a huge leg up when it comes to the skill set. Because being perceptive, thoughtful, conscientious, being a great listener, being observant of what's happening around you, understanding the subtleties and the nuances of people's behaviors, really being able to get into their pain points, their desires and frame your messages around that. All of that is successfully managing up. And when you have high EQ, when you're sensitive to other people's needs, you can do it ethically.

• 12:23Ryan Hawk?

  You're right. Managing up isn't really about making your boss's life easier. It's about taking control of your own work experiences. This is about taking ownership over your career. It's about, like you said, being emotionally intelligent enough and perceptive and aware enough to realize what's happening, how to manage relationships. And I think primarily how to consistently add value to the people you are working with on a daily basis. How are you making the company? Company better. How are you making the people around you better? Certainly, how are you making your boss's life a little bit better? That's a big part of it. But there's so much more. And I

• 13:06Ryan Hawk?

  think it's really about EQ more than anything and taking ownership over your career more so than sucking up to somebody. Because like you said, those get seen quickly and and they don't last. I don't think they get promoted very high. Every once in a while, there's exceptions to that rule. But for the most part, it's about being a value add and taking control of your career. I feel like that's what you're all about.

• 13:29Speaker 00

  Yes, I like to say focus on the triple win. Focus on areas that, yes, are a win for you. Something benefits you, benefits your manager, but also benefits the organization as a whole. That's when you know you are managing up in a way that has integrity behind it.

• 13:46Ryan Hawk?

  Hmm. What would be like an example of that? It benefits you, it benefits your manager, and it benefits the organization as a whole.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, let's take there's an entire chapter on the book called the Ownership Conversation. And that is all about you. You used the word ownership a moment ago. And it's really all about when you see problems that are frustrating to you, or opportunities that you would love to capitalize on. Is that something that would satisfy that triple win? It if not, it could be an opportunity where you're just excited about it because it would be a chance to show off and it would build certain relationships for you. But in most cases, right, that that initiative or whatever you want to focus on also may make your boss look good, or it may help streamline

• 14:33Speaker 00

  things for the team. And then by virtue of that, how else does it help the organization? Like, right now, I have a lot of clients who are interested in AI, and they're making the case to their manager that, hey, this would help us reduce a lot of meetings that we have, or a lot of duplicate work that we're doing. And so there's a productivity argument, not just for their manager, and their manager being able to show results up to their own leadership, but also organizationally, what's the boon to productivity? Can we get ahead of our competitors? And so that's a great example of how do you find something that satisfies that triple win?

• 15:10Ryan Hawk?

  Hmm. That's so good. I remember early in my career when I was an idiot and didn't have any idea what I was doing. My dad was super helpful and he said, look, find things that are huge issues within the company and for your boss and for your boss's boss that will actually make the company money and try to solve those. Try to go after those. That's, those are the projects. Those are the things that most people run away from. And that's kind of like the triple win, right? You do it. You're gonna show that you can tackle hard things. I remember I had Carly Fiorina on this podcast, Melody, years ago, and she went from being a secretary to the first Fortune 500 woman CEO, Fortune like 100 woman CEO ever. And I was like, God, there's probably so much to that story, but how did

• 15:54Ryan Hawk?

  you do it? How do you go from a secretary to CEO and not even that long a time? And she goes, run towards the fire. I'm like, huh? Run towards the places in your company where everybody else is running away. I ran towards those time and time again and solved them and gathered up coalitions of people to solve them, made the company better, made them money, saved them money, all those things. And if you do that enough, you could become the CEO. And I think that's the ultimate version of managing up is running towards the fire. That ultimately feels like it gets the triple win.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. And you hit on something in that chapter. I also talk about how there are types of worthwhile problems to solve because exactly what you said, not every issue that you see is worth your time or is going to have that disproportionate benefit. And so what I hear you talking about are things that may fit into two of the buckets, which are bottlenecks, right? Or there are inefficiencies, frustrations that if removed, you could solve those, or neglected needs. The thing that we talk about every quarter or at the end of every meeting, it says, well, we'll punt that to next week, right? Those sorts of things, running towards that problem is, is huge.

• 17:13Ryan Hawk?

  I want to get into more chapters of the book, but I'm first curious just about you, Melody. How did you get into this? What made this be something you wanted to study that you seem to be very curious about enough to do all this research and write books? What made you get into this?

• 17:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's interesting because again, I think hindsight is 2020. And so how I first got into my entire career is I started out as a therapist. And so my background is in psychology, studying human behavior. And I ran a research lab at Rutgers University for many years. And from there, I felt research was disconnected from application. And so went to school, got my masters in social work, started doing coaching. And what I noticed is that the people I were working with were very high achieving executives at tech companies, CEOs, that sort of thing. And they were struggling with some of the emotional and

• 18:08Speaker 00

  mental dynamics of success, but they wanted more practicality than traditional therapy offered. And flash forward, and I've really carved out this niche for myself, working with people I call sensitive strivers. Those are people that are highly sensitive, also very driven. And when my first book, Trust Yourself, came out in 2021, the piece of feedback I heard repeatedly that really surprised me, and that's, that's when you should listen, when it's something you didn't expect, is people would say, I feel more confident. But all of that breaks down when I have to deal with people in positions of higher authority, who I find intimidating, or there's power dynamics there, and I don't know where

• 18:53Speaker 00

  I stand with someone and how much I can push, how passive I should be, or assertive I should be. And that really got me thinking. And really, the whole thrust of my career over the last 15 years has been, how do we take? The understanding that we have of human behavior and how psychology works and actually apply that to where we spend 70, 80% of our time, which is our careers in the workplace. Yeah, most of us are, we're, we get sometimes to the midpoint of our career, pretty high up in an organization without ever learning about what motivates people. How do we inspire

• 19:34Speaker 00

  others? What leads someone to get buy-in for a decision or not? We never learn about that. And you and I were talking before we started recording that many people hit this ceiling mid-career where it flips from, yes, your aptitude and your skills got you where you are, but it flips. And now all of a sudden, you need to understand and discern these invisible dynamics around you.

• 19:58Ryan Hawk?

  I am fascinated by having conversations with people who have a lot of power. Brian Copeland, I went to New York City to record with him in person. It was, it was amazing talk. And Brian said that was one of the coolest things his dad taught him. His dad was a music executive. And he taught me from a really young age, how to be in the room with people that had lots of power and fame and wealth. And he think it's helped him for the rest of his career. And, and let's shift that a little bit now to, for example, CEOs. Let's say somebody is a manager or a director. And I know this is kind of a broad example, but I hope we can have some practical takeaways for this melody. So let's say

• 20:39Ryan Hawk?

  you're a mid-level manager, director, maybe VP, and you have either like a QBR, quarterly business review, or just a, a meeting on a project with the CEO of your company. And it's probably dependent upon the, the personality of the CEO. I realize that in this hypothetical, but I still feel like we can get there. What, what are some general pieces of advice you would give to that person who is a striver, who wants to keep getting promoted, who wants to move up the chain, who's in a early management role, but isn't in a senior one yet, that wants to really do a good job during that QBR or that meeting with the CEO? They really want to leave a mark in a positive way to say, this person, somebody to keep your eye

• 21:24Ryan Hawk?

  on. We want to probably promote him or her. What are some general pieces of advice you'd have for that person to get ready for that meeting?

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, adapting your communication is a huge part of it. We could talk about that in just a minute. But I think one of the biggest things people miss is connecting what you did to why it matters in the big picture, especially someone who is operating at the C-suite level. They may not necessarily want to know all the minutia, the ins and outs, the process, the tools you used. They want to know what's the bottom line here and why does this matter to me in the big picture? And so you almost have to practice some upward empathy to put yourself in their shoes to think about from a strategic perspective. How might the CEO

• 22:12Speaker 00

  use what you're going to give them to report up to the board? And how can you give it to them in a format that makes it easy to share? So much of successfully managing up comes down to saving the people around you cognitive energy. And so if you're presenting something to the CEO, it should be in a format that they could turn around and share with their executive team or the board. The same goes if you have a performance review, you know, we're coming out of, or coming into, depending on a company's cycle, performance review season. I'm always talking with my clients about how you need to be the one creating a one pager for your manager about what you've accomplished this year. You shape the narrative you want

• 22:57Speaker 00

  to tell. You highlight what's most important because your manager is busy. They may not remember or pick out the things that you wanted in highest relief. And also make their job easier. You hand them that one pager. There's a very, very high likelihood they're going to take 80% of that copy and paste it into your performance review and you've just saved them so much time. So the same thing goes for the CEO. And what I would also say is get ahead of objections. Again, this is about getting into the head of people that you're working with. And so that may mean that you have to pre-wire with other people in advance,

• 23:39Speaker 00

  whether it's the chief of staff, for example, and you want to understand what types of questions or concerns does a CEO usually bring up? So that when you are presenting, you can have, at the end of your talk, you can have, before I open it up for discussions, let me talk about and address some of the things that may be on your mind. Nothing is, nothing makes an executive happier than to know people anticipated. And that gives you amazing visibility because visibility is not just about what you have accomplished, right? Yes, your accomplishments and the results of that are important, but it's also about transparency into your thought process, right? Are you thinking strategically?

• 24:22Speaker 00

  Do they see you know how to weigh different trade-offs and considerations? And that's what will show someone at a C-suite level. Oh, this person is operating like an executive. We need someone who thinks like that at this level.

• 24:38Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, man, there's so much good stuff there. I had a meeting with the CEO years ago where I was a, like an RSM, a regional sales manager, and we were presenting this big thing or whatever, that how we did and what we wanted to do and all this stuff and how it would impact the company. And I remember I met with this team, this like collaborative team across different business units, God, a million times, putting together this insane PowerPoint deck before our big meeting with the CEO, right? Like, everybody is all juiced up, people are nervous and weird. And we ran through the deck a million times too, as well, to get ready for the CEO. We get in there and they print it off and they hand it to the guy. And I love the guy, he's a good dude. I actually had dinner with him recently in Boston and he just flips to the pages that he cares about. And literally people are up there presenting.

• 25:22Ryan Hawk?

  I was doing part of the presentation and while we're presenting, he's flipping to, like, looking for something that he actually cares about. And then as soon as he found a page he cared about, he just, he just looked up and started asking questions about it. It was hilarious to be like, oh, this is how it goes. He doesn't have time to let us go through this stupid song and dance of our 90-page PowerPoint. He found the thing he cared about and immediately just started asking about that. And I'm like, that's the real life. That's how it is. My thing was, how do you just do that part instead of the 90 pages of the PowerPoint deck?

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. And I could have predicted that is exact. I was like biting my tongue that that was my guess of what happened. And this is actually a technique I don't share in the book. So a little bit of a exclusive for your audience, but you know, designing your presentations almost like an accordion, because when you're presenting to an executive, you do have to be prepared that the conversation may get hijacked by one piece of information or one question that they can attack. Yes. And so having sort of this accordion approach, and you know, if you imagine an accordion in your head, you know, it goes, it goes in and it comes out. And so having that

• 26:34Speaker 00

  approach allows you to know, I could do this in 15 minutes, or if I actually get 45, here's what I would share. But this is the essential. So you know that, okay, we got, we just wasted 20 minutes, or we spent 20 minutes on that question. I need to cut out these pieces. I can provide that in some follow up. Let me refocus on this core here. Yeah.

• 26:57Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. So good. Okay, let's get to the one pager. Now, I think this is a brilliant idea. My wife actually is a leader, and this would have been so helpful if her people would have done this to her, which is create the one pager of what you accomplished. So let's get really practical, Melody. So you're, you're in the position, I mean, almost everybody has a boss. So what goes on this one pager? What has to be there to make sure that you're appropriately sharing? And I guess setting yourself up in a way to manage up well, what goes on this one pager?

• 27:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. And if you don't mind, I'll take that just a little bit of a different direction, because yes, your performance review happens once, maybe you have a mid-year check-in. But what happens more often is your one on ones, right? That's a more consistent opportunity. So with your one on ones, those are also, you know, you almost have to think of them like mini performance reviews. And also, let me say, by the time you get to your performance review, nothing in there should be a surprise to you, you know, when it comes to your one on ones, though, I think most people just treat those as reactive.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  Kind of run-of-the-mill status check-ins or status updates. Okay, here's where we are with this, we're moving forward with that. And that's really a missed opportunity. So my suggestion is to always start your one-on-ones with wins. You could call it that, you could call it wins, milestones, progress, successes, whatever you want, whatever word feels best in your company culture. But the idea there is to talk about results and outcomes, not just tasks completed. And there's a difference, there's a difference between saying, okay, we, we got this feature set done versus saying, yes, this feature set is done. And here's what it allows us to do next.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  Or here's the feedback that we got from the product team about this. Very different approach versus just going through the checklist. And so you're starting with those wins. And the idea there is, again, your manager is busy. And especially in the hybrid environment, they may not know what you're doing. But this is also about moving from seeing this as self-promotion to seeing this as informing the people above you. Because you have a responsibility to inform your manager of what you're doing so that they can take that information, they can run it up their own chain of command to advocate for resources or get you into the room where decisions are being made.

• 29:37Speaker 00

  So I think that's a fundamental shift there. And so you're going to start that with some sort of a wins. And then you're going to move on to really the, the meteor portion of your one-on-one, which is identifying one to three key areas where you may need support or coaching from your manager. This is your time, again, to showcase some of that critical thinking, problem solving and to workshop things with your manager.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  And again, the psychology behind this is starting to approach that relationship more as a trusted advisor and a partner and also seeing your manager as a partner to you versus you just being someone who takes orders from them and your manager just spewing things at you that you need to do. So we have wins, then we have sort of that workshopping section. And then you're going to ask your manager about what's coming down the pike for them. And that gives you a lot of information to know, am I working on the right things? To ask, do you need support with that? Could I step in in that meeting or make this introduction for you? It allows you to, again, anticipate, find ways to inject yourself into situations,

• 30:48Speaker 00

  but also help your manager out. And then last is accountability or contracting. Okay, we agreed today that I'll get you this and this by this date. And you had mentioned you were going to add me to that meeting. Would you like to do that now? Or should I send a follow-up message just to make sure we get that on the calendar? So there's accountability on both sides, the things you're going to be doing, but also the things you have asked for your manager and making sure you have next steps on that.

• 31:16Ryan Hawk?

  Wow, that's so good. I remember one of my early mentors, a guy named Lee Rivas. Lee was a West Point guy, a tank commander. And then after that wasn't enough incredible work serving our country, he went to Harvard Business School and he was a super fast riser. And so I was like, God, I gotta get to know this guy. Well, we had these regular calls. And I remember after I got promoted, I was like six months into my first management role and I was a complete idiot. And Lee's like, hey, how are you taking care of your boss? And I was trying to think of a semi-intelligent way to answer when I had no idea what he was talking about. When he said, how are you taking care of your boss? And I was like, well, you know, and he goes, every Friday, send them a list, because he goes, you have your one on ones on Monday

• 32:00Ryan Hawk?

  with your boss, right? I go, yep. And he goes, okay, every Friday, at the end of the day, send them a list of real results and accomplishments of things that you did, as well as some other potential ideas for you to talk about for your one on ones. He'll love that. And I started doing that. And now I do that with like everybody, like clients and others, like just the, the primary word there is being proactive and taking ownership of that meeting. Take ownership of it. Your boss has a million things going on. How refreshing and how great is it for them if they see you're on top of it? They have plenty of other problems and people to, to deal with when you're not one of those. In fact, you're the opposite of that. Who you are setting yourself up and it works melody as a forcing function

• 32:45Ryan Hawk?

  for you to always be looking for, okay, how are we generating results? What are we actually doing? How am I ensuring I have the pulse and the understanding of my team, of the people I'm leading, of what's going on? Because you know, you're going to write that Friday email to get ready for that Monday one-on-one. And I like the idea of creating forcing functions as a way to make sure you're noticing, you're aware, you're on the front lines of what's happening as a leader, so that you don't get too far away and not understand what's going on in your business. Cause everybody can see when there's a manager or a leader who isn't tapped into what's actually happening. And those managers usually don't get, don't last for long. And they certainly don't get promoted. So I think that, that idea, that's

• 33:29Ryan Hawk?

  a great, great way to make sure you're taking care of your boss.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. And if I could also add to that, there may also be times where you don't have tangible accomplishments to show. Things are just out of your control. But the key there is you can still frame that as win. If you talk about, here's how we're tackling this. Here's how we're thinking through this. So it doesn't always have to be that things are sunshine and rainbows and working out perfectly. That's not going to be the case. But your job is to show, even when things are difficult and not going according to plan, here's how I am approaching that. And I think another thing about this. One-on-one structured or nudging your relationship in this direction of partnership is

• 34:16Speaker 00

  that the structure we're talking about here also unearthed areas where you can leverage your boss's power to get things done. And what I mean by that is often I will have a lot of clients, again, matrix environments, really complex projects, lots of people involved. And sometimes, for whatever reason, they just can't break through. Someone's not listening to them or following through on something, whatever it is. And when you have, when you've built this relationship with your manager, it allows you to say, we've hit a barrier on this project. And what I think would be really helpful at this point is if you came to the meeting and you sent the message that this is a priority for us, because I think

• 35:01Speaker 00

  people need to hear that from you. And that shows just next level organizational awareness that I think is just unmatched and that most people are not doing at all.

• 35:13Ryan Hawk?

  Also, I love it if someone who works for me gives me a chance to kind of come in and help out. That's a great feeling. I remember being a VP of Sales when they would say things like, and they may have been like puffing my ego, hey, it would really help to have you in this meeting, even if you're just there, just to kind of help push this one over the edge. You being there is really important. And I think there's a number of reasons. One, that may just simply have been the truth. It also could have been them asking like, hey, I want to show off to show you how good I am. Or it could have just tried to make me feel good. But either way, like, it was a win for the company. It was a win for that person. And I like people who are proactive like that. Okay, I want to get in, Mellie, if you're good with it, a few of the other parts of your book, and the

• 35:55Ryan Hawk?

  different types of, you've organized it in the types of conversations that you want to have. And I was really drawn to the feedback one. Okay, because I think this one is tough. Normally, you think of feedback and you think of the boss gives the person that works for them feedback. Yes, that is part of it. We're talking about it going the other way. How does somebody get good and set up their relationship to effectively give feedback up instead of just giving feedback down?

• 36:26Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. And you know, as you mentioned, there's, there's 10 conversations in the book, and I believe feedback, and I don't want to get this wrong, but I believe feedback is number five. And so there are four other conversations before it. And that's important because the first one is alignment, right? We talked a little bit about that.

• 36:44Ryan Hawk?

  You want me to go through the 10 real quick?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Let's go through the first five. I think that would be, yeah.

• 36:49Ryan Hawk?

  Alignment, styles, ownership, boundaries, and then feedback. So alignment, styles, ownership, boundaries, then feedback. So the order matters. The order matters a lot.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Okay, the order matters. And specifically, just for a moment, we can loop back to this, but styles is important here because you have to understand your manager's frame of reference, how they see the world, what they're motivated by, because that influences how you're going to frame your feedback and present your feedback about the importance of why this change needs to happen. But let me leave that there for one second. So many of these conversations, you can't just dive into them without doing some kind of pre-work and self-searching to get yourself in the right mindset and position to have it successfully. And with the feedback

• 37:42Speaker 00

  conversation, I talk about defining your A, B, C's. A is the assumption you are making. Usually, this is the negative label you're putting on that person. They're a micromanager. They can't give clear instructions to save their life. They're playing favorites with this other person, right? It's usually some sort of accusation even about their behavior. So define what you think the A is, then go to B. B is for behavior. If you are watching a movie, how would you be able to know or define that this person was a micromanager? I had a client a few weeks ago who was saying, when I'm presenting to this certain

• 38:23Speaker 00

  client, my manager is asking to see every single slide and communication that's going out to this company. That's, that's a behavior you can work with. And the most successful feedback focuses on the behavior, not the assumption or the accusation.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  And so define the behavior and then C is all about what is the change you would like to see? Because it's not going to go over well if you just go to your manager and dump a complaint on them and say, well, you need to change, be better. It's going to go over much well and you will get more of the actual solution you want and you think would be most helpful. If you come with a proposal or a question, like let's say with a micromanager, you could say, could we sit down, I can bring you an understanding of what I think, what areas I think I can operate independently versus where your oversight would continue to be useful and we can work through that together and come to an agreement.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  And so the A is not something you're going to say, but the B and the C are. And when it comes to actually having that conversation, like you have to bring it up and sort of have the can we talk moment? You do want to start with getting some micro agreement, like, hey, is this a good time to chat about XYZ? Or do you have a minute for this? Get the person's buy-in and permission. And always try to find a way to create a shared goal. Because trust is built on, in the research, they call this benevolence, right? And benevolence is a fancy word for, does someone feel like you have their best interest at heart? Are you for them instead of against them?

• 40:06Speaker 00

  And benevolence in this case may be, yeah, I really care about the success of our team. Or I know this client is really important to us. I, I hope you would agree with that. So that's why I wanted to talk about this. And that sets up the stage for someone to be much more receptive.

• 40:24Ryan Hawk?

  Hmm. I think this can be tough when you work for, and I have a person in my head right now. Unfortunately, I'm sure most people do, that is.

• 40:35Ryan Hawk?

  Perfect in their minds. They've got it all figured out. They don't need to read books or listen to podcasts. They know it all. A bit of narcissism, perhaps. Massive ego, whatever. All that stuff. We're all picturing that person. You want to give them feedback because there's so much to give, but you also realize, is this going to like ruin everything? Are those the situations that you just suck it up and deal with it until you go to the next place? Or like, how do you manage through a boss like that where there's so much there that it's beyond assumptions. They're they're kind of facts and it's known throughout the the place. And again, we probably all literally have that thought bubble going up right now of an actual person. And I certainly do. What what's the best way to manage through

• 41:20Ryan Hawk?

  that when you have the narcissistic kind of ego fueled boss?

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, a couple of things. So, you know, before we get to the narcissistic kind, right, there, there are some questions you do need to ask yourself because you can't give feedback on everything and anything. If you do that, it is, it is going, it withdraws from the bank of social capital you have with that person until it's like you have nothing left. And so you need to think about, has this happened before? Right? Is you don't necessarily want to give feedback on something that the person could have had a bad day, could have been circumstantial. And so has it happened twice, three times? Or have you seen it with multiple people across multiple projects? Try to look for that that kind

• 42:05Speaker 00

  of rule of threes that it is, it is a pattern. Do you have all the facts of the situation? Again, have you talked to other people who are involved? Or do you really understand the full scope of the pressures your manager may be under that's influencing them to act a certain way? And I think another helpful question is, will there be consequences if I don't give this feedback soon? Or I've been actually talking to a lot of clients recently who are saying, if this manager doesn't change something, I have my direct reports telling me they're going to quit. And we're going to be up a creek if we lose three, five of our people and have to replace them. And so that's a big consequence that

• 42:49Speaker 00

  necessitates you giving that feedback sooner rather than later. And then I think when you're dealing with a narcissistic manager, it's, it's kind of a different ballgame there, right? You can

• 43:05Speaker 00

  There's only starts to become so much you can do. This is where having other advocates beyond your boss comes into play because you also need people to give you a reality check. It's very easy to personalize your manager's behavior and think I'm the only person they cut off or are constantly changing the goalpost on. And you need other people who can say, no, that's, that's kind of the way they operate. And again, I had one client who did this where her, her manager was constantly taking credit for her work. And it unfortunately seemed to be a pattern where he wasn't doing this with some of the male colleagues, but with a lot of the female colleagues, he was.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  And so she kind of got more information about what was going on, but she really made a point of putting so much more of her energy in building other allies throughout the company. She volunteered for conferences that they were putting together. She would run panels, so she would meet other executives. And that eventually allowed her to build enough of a relationship with someone who said, my colleagues hiring in this, is in this other team, you would be a great fit for it. And they poached her out of that team. And so she sort of had to bide her time. I think all of this speaks to the fact that sometimes your mental health is more important

• 44:26Speaker 00

  at the end of the day, and you have to weigh, will giving this feedback, am I prepared mentally and emotionally to deal with potential fallout from giving this feedback? And a lot of managing up is also pressure testing. If this is an environment where you want to be, because the people I work with, I'm sure the people that listen to this show are folks that want to put their head on the pillow at night and think, I did everything in my power to make this work. And at the end of the day, it's just not, not where I'm meant to be or not where I can be successful. And so if you have the, try to have the feedback conversation, and in the book, I give lots

• 45:10Speaker 00

  of techniques for how do you deal with resistance and pushback that you get. But at the end of the day, if someone is chronically gaslighting you, throwing you under the bus, you truly are working with a narcissist, then this is going to help you realize that sooner rather than later, so that you can confidently make a choice to move on.

• 45:30Ryan Hawk?

  Yep. Okay. I could go on about that forever. I'm going to move on. People should do if they find themselves in that spot. Okay. The advancement conversation, I know this happens at a lot of companies now, which when they do these employee opinion surveys, EOS for short, that I think a lot call them. One of the big things that pops up is, is they, is employees say, well, there's not enough room for advancement. Well, that's because there's only so many jobs in leadership and there's a lot more individual contributor jobs. Let's say somebody feels like they're doing a really good job. They want to have the advancement conversation. They want to get promoted. They want to have this upward trajectory at their company. How do you have this conversation? How do you make sure that everyone is aware that you want to advance, that you want to get promoted?

• 46:14Ryan Hawk?

  And what's the right way to do it?

• 46:17Speaker 00

  You have to start much earlier than you think you might have to. And that goes exactly to what you were saying, that there are limited opportunities. And I also think reframing what advancement means, because yes, there may be limited promotion spots. I work with some clients who will say, I only have two promotions I can give this year. That's it. And so you may have to think more creatively about what advancement means to you, whether it's a stretch project. Maybe it's growing your team size from two to four people. Maybe it's being able to shadow a different part of the company or own a bigger budget.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  You may have to think more broadly, but regardless of what you want that to look like to you, you need to start planting seeds early. Because as I said before, nothing that comes at the performance review should be a surprise. And you definitely should not wait until that moment to say to your manager, well, I thought I was getting a promotion. I thought that was in the bag because that decision has been made months in advance when budgets are being allocated and calibration is happening and headcount is being determined. And so early on, you know, maybe three to six months in advance, you need to have a conversation with your manager to say,

• 47:35Speaker 00

  hey, in the coming year, I would love to move from manager to director level. What would you need to see in order to feel comfortable with that? And that does a few things. Number one, it puts it puts your advancement front of mind for them. So they take it more seriously. It's not an afterthought. Number two, it allows you to surface objections or concerns they may have about your readiness. Or maybe you find out other people need to be involved in this decision. You learn more about the process to get there. And it helps you start building a roadmap that you can work against. So over time, you know, I've recommend also setting aside one, one-on-one a quarter that you earmark specifically for professional development.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Cause it's very easy for that to just get lost in the shuffle of the day to day. And in those conversations, that gives you the ability to say, all right, I heard that stakeholder management was an important area. You, you wanted me to work on that. You needed to see improvement. Here's what I've done so far. Are we still on track for, for that promotion cycle later this year? And so again, getting it on the table, make sure that for both of you, it's not a surprise. It makes it harder for your manager to keep moving goalposts along the way as well.

• 48:54Ryan Hawk?

  I think that goes both ways. If you're in a leadership position, a senior leadership position, there should be the, the, the feedback and coaching for the current moment stuff, projects, things you're working on, goals that are set for this quarter, this day, this week, this month. Absolutely. But as leaders, it is our responsibility to make our team, to make our company a great place to do great work. And one of the ways to do that is to prove that you genuinely care for your people and you care for their long-term benefit. And so you are pushing to have longer-term developmental type conversations about their career and helping them develop the skills and even paying for training to help them develop the skills to one day either leave you

• 49:39Ryan Hawk?

  or potentially get promoted with your organization. I think that's on us as leaders. This brought me back when you were talking about that melody to earlier in my career. I had a director role and a more of a general management strategic type job at a company called Lexus Nexus, working for this amazing woman named Dustin Kim, one of the smartest and most caring, just best, best bosses ever. I still love Dustin. We still talk. She's running a company called Artsy now in New York City and is just crushing it. Anyway, she was my boss. She was an SVP and I was a director and I got offered a VP of Sales role outside of her organization. And I took it and I remember I called her to tell her and I was dreading it. She was in New York and I was in Ohio and I was dreading it so bad because I loved her so much. I still do.

• 50:22Ryan Hawk?

  And I said, Dustin, I just got offered this VP of Sales role. You know, it's a big jump. I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna leave and I know how close we are and how much like I love working for you, but this is just too big of a jump for me to pass up. And I remember the first thing she said, she goes, Ryan, why didn't you tell me? I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, why didn't you tell me that's what you wanted? Because it was VP of Sales and I was in like a strategy, management, strategy, organizational development type role. And she goes, I didn't think you wanted to go back into sales. And I go, well, Dustin is VP. It's a big job, big jump, good money, all this. And she goes, I have those roles in my organization. You could have stuck with me. I would have loved to do that. Why didn't you tell me? I could have got this ready for you to make this happen soon.

• 51:07Ryan Hawk?

  You should have told me. And I was like, yeah, she's right. I never told her that. I never said that I wanted to do that. I never had that advancement conversation. I never said like that would have piqued my curiosity and that was my fault for not having told her. And we could have maybe made that work had I done that. So I think that's on us again, to take ownership of your career and make sure the people you're working with know what you want to do. And you can't expect them to read your mind. And I will never forget that conversation that we had where she's like, why didn't you tell me? I was like, yeah, good question. I should have told you. So I think that's a big part of taking ownership of your career.

• 51:46Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Yeah. And what's underneath some of that as well is thinking about making yourself dispensable in your role because you can't move up, you can't move on to something else or expand in any way if you're the only person that can do your job. And if you are saying yes to everything, I can't tell you how many people have come to me who will get feedback in their performance reviews or from leadership that says, well, we don't know if you're ready for the next level because we don't see you being able to ruthlessly prioritize or have hard conversations. About what needs to be done and what, what doesn't. You don't know how to negotiate at that

• 52:28Speaker 00

  level. And who's going to do your job? And so what I also hear in there is you have to, yes, like, I am sure you had people that you needed to make more capable and coach them up and give them capacity in order to be able to move on, whether it was in that organization or another one.

• 52:47Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, so true. The money conversation, right? I think everybody's curious about this one. The money. When is the right time to negotiate salary? How do I make sure I'm getting the compensation I deserve? How, Melody, this one could go on forever. What's the, how do you do the money conversation? When do you do it? What's the best way to do it?

• 53:05Speaker 00

  Yes, money loaded topic, right? And there's never a right time because, because it's always a difficult topic and some things will always be opaque to you. You won't always be able to have transparency, but sometimes are better than others, right? You need to keep your finger on the pulse of how is the company doing? Do we have job postings going up? Or are we in a time of austerity and cost cutting? And so read the room. But when it comes to asking for money, what, what I find the biggest mistake people make is they focus too much on what they've already done and not enough on what they can do, given greater compensation. Because we've

• 53:48Speaker 00

  talked about this the whole show, that your manager needs to make, make a case to people above them. All right, if I'm going to give Ryan, let's say 50K more, what are we going to get for that? Put in a crude sort of way. And so you need to make the case to your manager. Yes, I've demonstrated I can operate at this level and provide higher value. But here's a general idea of what that value may be. I could take on this project. I'd be able to go after these clients because I would have more sway and buy in. I could oversee a larger team, which means we would be able to move more quickly. So you have to be able to make both

• 54:26Speaker 00

  sides of that case. And then the other piece that I think people miss is that they focus on, I deserve this. I would like this money because I deserve it. And that may be true, but.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  It is, you will be much more successful if you frame it in terms of fairness. And so I want to make sure my salary reflects the scope I'm overseeing. Or I want to make sure it's commensurate with this job title. For example, though that type of language is more about writing the scales versus just giving you more money because you deserve it. So when you use that sort of fairness language, it taps into that human sense we have of reciprocity and wanting to make sure that, that people are taken care of.

• 55:17Ryan Hawk?

  It's so good. You don't deserve money just because some time has passed. That's come up before and I'm usually, I feel like on the other end of this where people are like asking for more. I'm like, wait a second, what? Just because time has passed, that's not how this works. Like what it's all about, and I tried to bring the same thing to my clients now, like I don't deserve anything. I don't deserve any money unless I'm bringing value, I'm adding value to your life. For the people, my leadership development clients, if I'm not adding value to you, way more than, by the way, what you should be paying me. I think that's how in our line of work, you have to be keynote speaker, whatever. I need to be providing way, way, way more value than what you're paying me. Then you can ask for more, then you can ask for high ticket keynotes and those things like that. But I think it's always got to be future forward.

• 56:01Ryan Hawk?

  Yes, you need some of the proof and the evidence that you've done big things in the past, but it's always got to be about moving forward and put yourself in their shoes. Right? And, and especially if it's like an owner or somebody who it's legitimately their money. Like you got to think about the value that you are adding moving forward, regardless of what you think you deserve. I think that's so big. Okay, Melody, we're right at time. I am curious for if you have time for one more question.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:24Ryan Hawk?

  But I feel like you'd be really good at this one. You're meeting with somebody who's earlier in their career. Okay. They want to leave a dent in the world, perhaps like a college grad earlier on though. They want to leave it a positive dent in the world. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to the person who isn't quite sure what they want to do, other than the fact that they want to leave a positive impact?

• 56:47Speaker 00

  Wow, what a question. I think something I had to learn the hard way, that I come back to many, many times in my career, is you teach people how to treat you. And you, you can't make a positive impact if you are running yourself ragged, if you are staying up till 11:00 PM responding to emails. You teach people how to treat you. And so if you stay silent, you may inadvertently be teaching people that you don't have anything of value to say. Or if you don't interject after someone has talked over you in a meeting, again, you may be inadvertently teaching people that your opinion doesn't have to be valued. Or

• 57:29Speaker 00

  if you respond to emails within two minutes of receiving them on a Saturday, that your time is not valuable. And so we have so much more control to, to shape the dynamics around us than we think. And when you do that, how people respond to you, when you show up differently, how people respond to you also changes as well. That's one thing I should say. And then the second goes back to what we were talking about way at the beginning, is that this idea of managing up is sleazy, it's gross, conniving, it's something you shouldn't do. When, in actuality, when you have more sway, more power, whether that is positional power, information,

• 58:12Speaker 00

  resources, when you have greater influence, then you are in a position to make things better for everyone else. And so if you are a good-hearted, genuine person, then we need more people like you in power. We need people like you making decisions at the highest level.

• 58:30Ryan Hawk?

  Use that power for good. Love it. The book is called managing up how to get what you need from the people in charge. I highly recommend reading this. I think it's very a combination of the story, science, practical application style that I love, Melody. So, thank you for taking the time to put this in writing. It's a perfect title. And I think anyone trying to build a career, this would absolutely be useful. Melody, thank you again for being here. I love to continue our dialogue as we go through the rest. I think there could be a lot of conversations we could have.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  Absolutely. It was a lot of fun. So, thank you so much.

• 59:11Ryan Hawk?

  It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, [email protected]. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Melody Wilding. A few takeaways from my notes. Managing up is not kissing up. Managing up is strategically navigating relationships with those who have more positional power than you, namely your boss. It is a critical skill set for maneuvering through the complex web of power dynamics, conversations, and unspoken expectations that shape our daily work lives. If you want to build a great career, you have to take

• 59:55Ryan Hawk?

  ownership of it. And managing up and understanding how all of the power dynamics work is a useful skill to learn. And then I loved it when she talked about the triple win. What is something you can do that is good for you, good for your boss, and good for the companies? Focus on those issues, solving those problems, and good things will happen for you as you grow your career. Think about Carly Fiorina. Run towards the fire. Solving those tough problems will help you, your boss, and your company. And then her idea of the one pager. Absolutely do this for your yearly reviews to help your boss, but also even more so, do it on a weekly basis. Send them weekly.

• 1:00:40Ryan Hawk?

  Usually leading up to your one-on-ones, bullet points of what you've accomplished, how you've helped them, how you've helped the company as a whole. Regardless of your role, it will make your relationship better if you proactively design your one-on-ones. Help your boss make those conversations easier. You can lead them. You can become the type of person that they are so happy to speak with because you've done that work for them. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, "Hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Melody Wilding. I think she'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, and you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts

• 1:01:25Ryan Hawk?

  and you subscribe to the show, really important, and you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review. And by doing all of that, you are regularly giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.