Episode 253 Transcript:

0:00:00 Ramona Shaw: Welcome to this week’s episode of The Manager Track podcast. This week I am excited to introduce a special guest to you. Her name is Melody Wolding and she is about actually, on publication day of this episode, she will launch her book, Managing up how to get what yout need from the People In Charge. Now, I’ve known Melody for a while and I’ve observed her work and seen her in action. She’s one of those people that is very thoughtful, very smart, very knowledgeable and has an arsenal of experience supporting professionals as they advance in their careers.

0:00:38 Ramona Shaw: She focuses specifically on helping high achieving professionals who are also feeling a lot and emotionally aware. And through her work, she identified 10 critical conversations to have with your manager or other senior leaders in the organization to help you create an environment that’s conducive to your success. And this is what this podcast episode is going to be about. We’re going to dive into setting boundaries. We’re going to talk about how to have career advancement conversations or ask for a raise and so much more. So you’re in for a treat.

0:01:14 Ramona Shaw: And I also highly recommend that if managing up is a topic that you’re interested in, go check out the show notes and look for the link to grab her book. If all goes as planned, it will be available on Amazon starting March 4th of 2025. Without further ado, let’s welcome Melody to the podcast. Here are the two questions this podcast answers. 1. How do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role?

0:01:40 Ramona Shaw: And 2 how do you keep climbing that leadership ladder and continuously get promoted? Although the competition and the expectations get bigger, this show The Manager Track podcast will answers I’m your host, Ramona Shaw. I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is seen as a source of contribution, connection and personal fulfillment. And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead. So everyone wins and grows.

0:02:08 Ramona Shaw: In this show, you’ll learn how to think, communicate and act as a confident and competent leader you know you can be.

0:02:15 Ramona Shaw: Melody, it’s so good to have you back on The Manager Track podcast. Thank you for joining us in a time that’s very busy for you. Welcome to the podcast.

0:02:24 Melody Wilding: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

0:02:28 Ramona Shaw: So we’re going to talk about a really important topic. Managing up is something that comes up a lot in your world as a coach as well as in my world with leaders that we both support day in and day out. In your book, you define managing up as strategically navigating relationships with those in power. Now, that all sounds fairly simple, but we both know that there is pushback that we sometimes receive to the suggestion to manage up effectively.

0:02:58 Ramona Shaw: And sometimes it’s because people don’t want to manage up or don’t think that they should have to manage up. What do you say to people who are hesitant with the idea of embracing the topic and the skill?

0:03:12 Melody Wilding: Yeah, I think a lot of the resistance we have to the idea is because we are thinking of an outdated version of managing up. We think about that person who is the suck up, who knows the boss’s coffee order or is laughing at their terrible jokes. And we think, and I hear this from people, I’m sure you do too, that I don’t want to be the suck up. I don’t want to have to ingratiate myself. I don’t want to play politics. I want to do good work and I want that to be enough.

0:03:44 Melody Wilding: And here’s the thing. We’ll. We’ll talk in a second about how that’s actually not what managing up is at the end of the day. But you also have to realize that when you are not doing this skill set, when you are not leaning into this and, and seeing the workplace as it is, where we have to navigate human dynamics and the power dynamics around us, you end up creating more of what you don’t want. You end up creating more frustration because your ideas are going to continue to get overlooked.

0:04:17 Melody Wilding: You feel even more anxious about speaking up in meetings or there’s more opportunities passing you by. And when we talk about, as you said, my definition of managing up is very simply navigating relationships with the people above you, primarily your boss, but also others. And at the end of the day, this is not something you do for your boss’s benefit. It’s not something you do to please them. It’s something you do to create the conditions for your own success.

0:04:49 Melody Wilding: And I think that’s a really important mindset shift because when we think of managing up as me getting what I need from the people in charge, whether that is clear direction or prioritization, being able to give people feedback and it’s actually heard and acted on, then we’re more so creating the conditions for our success to be happier, more productive.

0:05:13 Ramona Shaw: I love how you phrase this with really emphasizing the importance of creating conditions for us to be successful at our job. Now, when it comes to influencing others, and I’m going to kind of get really into this fairly quickly on or fairly early on here, what are some of the mistakes that people make as they’re trying to influence others, especially those people with power.

0:07:48 Melody Wilding: Yeah. And this is where emotional intelligence is your number one advantage when it comes to managing up. And that’s why I say it’s not about playing politics and being conniving and Machiavellian. It’s not about being a blowhard who is just, you know, self promoting from the rooftops and is all talk and no value really. To be a master at managing up, you have to be someone who reads between the lines, who is willing to listen to other people, who is very observant and is cares about other people’s needs and desires and goals.

0:08:26 Melody Wilding: And the strategic part comes in, in using that information to then make your communication and your approach, your actions more effective so that if you can frame your idea, maybe you do care more about the people involved, but you know, your boss is a more results oriented person. Well, instead of saying this is who we have on board with this already, you can explain this is how this is going to help us double the, or rather decrease the amount of time for us to deliver this project.

0:08:58 Melody Wilding: There you’re much more likely to get through and get a result with that person which benefits everyone. It benefits you, it benefits your manager, it benefits the organization.

0:09:09 Ramona Shaw: Absolutely. So in your book, you talk about these conversations. Which of those conversations do you think people struggle with the most?

0:09:18 Melody Wilding: Yeah, I already talked about styles. I think that one can be, not necessarily one that people struggle with, but definitely one people overlook. But I think where people have the most trouble is I would say boundaries is a big one. There’s an entire chapter on the boundaries conversation. And this is all about pushing back. Right. How do you say no in a way that is diplomatic, tactful? Because no is not a complete sentence in the workplace.

0:09:47 Melody Wilding: If you imagine, if you were to say just no can’t do that to your manager, very few of us could actually do that and have our relationship be the same. Right. You have to strike this balance of being a team player while not being a pushover. And so I think that’s one of the hardest lines to walk.

0:10:09 Ramona Shaw: What suggestions do you have for people to do that?

0:10:11 Melody Wilding: Well, yes. So in that chapter I give a menu options of different strategies you can use. You first have to understand what is my leverage to be able to say no, the amount of times I can and how forcefully or how assertively I can say no. So in the book I call this your pushback power. And most people overlook this. Right. I’m sure we’ve all had that one Junior person who thinks they have a lot more leverage to push back than they actually do. Right. That’s an example of not understanding your pushback power.

0:10:45 Melody Wilding: And so it means taking into account things like your tenure, the strength of your relationship with your manager, the state of the organization. If the organization is in crisis and free fall, then there’s going to be less tolerance for exceptions and pushback versus when the team or the organization’s in relative stability and calm. And so if your pushback power is on the lower side. Two of my favorite tactics for this one is the conditional yes.

0:11:17 Melody Wilding: And the conditional yes is saying I’m happy to do this this time because I know this is urgent or it’s important, but I hope we can recognize this is an exception or I won’t always be able to accommodate this type of timeline or even something like again, happy to pitch in here. Could we sit down and make sure we have a process for these types of requests in the future? So building in some kind of system or process.

0:11:44 Melody Wilding: So that’s the first strategy to conditional yes. The second, and the one I think is most multi use is called the trade off approach. And that is where you say okay, we had previously said X was our priority. Now I hear Y is important in order to make room for Y. What would you like me to deprioritize or delegate? Slow down on handoff, whatever it is. And the magic of that approach is you are, you’re being cooperative, right? You’re approaching it from a problem solving, solution, focused lens, but you’re also putting the decision making power back in the other person’s hands. And so when your positional, when your pushback power rather is lower, then that’s a great strategy because it’s not you saying well, I’m just, I’m not doing this, it’s you presenting a frame for the conversation and then ultimately they’re the authority.

0:12:46 Ramona Shaw: I think this also directly ties into your pushback power, which I really appreciate this concept because it’s very true. Not everyone has and in not every situation do you have the same leeway to, to work with. If you have, and if you demonstrate the priority offset or the opportunity costs of doing one thing versus another and whatever else you’re working on is of high priority to that said stakeholder or leader, you then, not only by highlighting this, do you use that specific system, but you also highlight or emphasize your pushback power.

0:13:21 Melody Wilding: Yes, exactly, yes. And you know the, the more seasoned you get in your organization, the more leverage you have, right? And the more assertive you can be about saying no.

0:13:34 Ramona Shaw: Another challenge other than the boundaries is what I often hear and you address. And I love to talk to get your, get your take on this is increasing visibility but not being too promotional.

0:13:50 Melody Wilding: Right.

0:13:50 Ramona Shaw: I think there is and there’s a bit of a gender dynamic to this too, based on my observations. An experience where we may not feel comfortable to really highlight or showcase what we’re working on unless the conditions for us to do that is perfect.

0:14:07 Melody Wilding: Right.

0:14:08 Ramona Shaw: Unless we’ve actually been asked and we’ve been told to present the results, but any other option or any other opportunity, we would feel braggy. How do we increase our visibility and boost the visibility of our work more often and not just those one off moments when we’re asked to present results.

0:14:30 Melody Wilding: Yes. Or those one off moments where you, you particularly feel courageous and bold that day. Right. We don’t, we don’t want our success to depend on feelings which can change and are temporary. And so you want to think about how can I build visibility into. I know you talk a lot about having a leadership system and I also know you talk a lot about one on ones and in your one on ones with your manager, that’s a perfect opportunity to build visibility into how you’re running those.

0:15:03 Melody Wilding: And so I always suggest your one on ones. Number one, you should lead them and number two, you should start with some sort of wins, milestones, accomplishments, progress, whatever you want to call it. But that’s your opportunity to not just go down the status updates of here’s where everything is, but to actually talk about outcomes. And if you don’t have tangible outcomes to talk your manager through.

0:15:28 Melody Wilding: Here’s how we’re tackling challenges. Here’s how I’m thinking about it, my considerations so that they have visibility into your thought process because you need to give your manager, you need to inform your manager about what you’re doing. They may not have, we’re using that word visibility in a very literal sense here. Especially if you’re hybrid or remote, they may not know what you’re doing every day.

0:15:54 Melody Wilding: And so you need to make that aware to them and you need to present it in such a way that they could take those updates and run it up their own chain of command because that’s how your team can get more resources or have the right people in the room where decisions are being made. And so it’s not just self promotion, it’s not just something you do for yourself. It’s almost more of a responsibility. We have to keep our managers informed.

0:16:20 Ramona Shaw: Of This I can also see how the framing there then really changes how I present something. So, for example, we know that part of managing well means to, to ensure that our managers or stakeholders aren’t caught off guard or are being surprised by something that we should have proactively informed them about. And so when I talk to them about, hey, I want to give you a heads up, but I want to let you know so that you’re in the loop, so that we’re on the same page so that you’re aware.

0:16:51 Ramona Shaw: And that kind of framing allows us to sort of weave in progress or results in a way that’s geared towards, presented in a way that’s beneficial to them. Exactly.

0:17:02 Melody Wilding: That’s a great way to put it. Yeah.

0:17:04 Ramona Shaw: Okay. There’s one more specific topic that I wanted to briefly highlight because I don’t think this gets addressed often, which is the money conversation. It especially in a time where we might feel the company is being stretched or people are being laid off, or we can justify why we might not get an increase somewhat rationally, but at the same time we start to feel like we’re being underpaid. What are some suggestions that you have for people in such situations to get out of that and to communicate?

0:17:40 Melody Wilding: Yeah, well, this is great because it goes hand in hand with the visibility conversation. And a mistake I see people make is when, when it comes to the money conversation, we focus too much on what we’ve already done. And using that as the justification for here’s why I deserve more, I did number one, number two, number three, in the last year, pay me more money. That’s only half of the equation. Yes, you need to focus on past accomplishments, but you also need to think about addressing what’s the future ROI.

0:18:17 Melody Wilding: If we pay you 10, 20, 50k more, what value is the organization going to get from that? And you need to put yourself in your manager’s shoes because they’re going to have to make that case to their own boss or to a committee or whoever it may be who’s making those resourcing decisions. And so, yes, you have to say, this is what I’ve done, but you also have to address, this is what I would be able to do if I was promoted from L6 to an L7 or from a manager to a director level.

0:18:48 Melody Wilding: I’d be able to work with these types of clients or scale the team in these ways to tackle this type of project. So addressing both sides of those is important. And then when it comes to actually making a request, I use that, that terminology. I deserve it. Right. And many of us come at the money conversation with that mentality. I’ve been here for a certain amount of time. I’m due for a raise. That may be true.

0:19:15 Melody Wilding: And you will get a lot further if you frame your request in terms of fairness. So using language like, I want to make sure that my compensation matches the level that I’m operating at or is commensurate with the value I’m bringing to the organization that it, you know, syncs up with the types of projects I’m working on. And so using that fairness language, it triggers the human response for reciprocity. We want to feel like we’re doing right by someone and we’re balancing the scales versus I should give you more money because you deserve it or because.

0:19:58 Ramona Shaw: You feel like you deserve it.

0:20:00 Melody Wilding: Yes, correct.

0:20:01 Ramona Shaw: Especially people who are motivated more so by, like, diet, by, know, doing the right thing or doing what’s best for the business. When we come in and we present our arguments with this, I feel like, or I think I deserve. Those arguments are often quickly shut down or neglected. On that, on that level, I love the suggestion. And I think you’re spot on with saying that there’s. Or with noticing that there are two components to this. And we often justify based on what we’ve done in the past and ignore the fact that we have to present what we’re going to do.

0:20:36 Ramona Shaw: I do see this similarly when people are interviewing or, you know, preparing and socializing this idea of taking on a bigger role, how they’re often justifying that by explaining what they’ve done in the past, although what this new role requires is actually not what they’ve done in the past. Sort of like forgetting to build that bridge and present themselves at that next level.

0:20:59 Melody Wilding: 100%, yes, you nailed it. And there’s so much overlap between. In the book, I call that the advancement conversation and money. They. They typically go hand in hand. Sometimes they don’t. But you’re so right that you have to. You have to paint a picture for the people around you so they can almost see you doing that role. You know, don’t leave. And this is where it comes back to. Managing up is something you do for yourself, not necessarily for other people.

0:21:26 Melody Wilding: Shape that narrative, right? Shape the perception of you. And that’s a perfect example of doing that. Don’t make people have to make that logical leap about, okay, so she’s done these certain things in this role, but they have to go through a lot of mental energy to make that translation, make it explicit. For them.

0:21:46 Ramona Shaw: Well, so we covered a number of different conversations and I know we only really touched on the surface. Your book is full, full of suggestions, frameworks, practical tips to help people and organizations become more effective at managing up. But I’d love to take a little bit of a, sort of zoom out a bit and look at the topic overall. As you were writing this book and based on your experience working with hundreds, I don’t know how many hundreds, but a lot of leaders in different ranks across organizations, what did you learn about managing up through this process?

0:22:23 Melody Wilding: Such a good question. I think a few things. So I’m big on the phrase you teach people how to treat you. And one of my reasons for writing this book is that since the pandemic, the number of people who feel out of control at work, who feel like their future is not in their control, their relationships are out of their control, their career is out of their control, that has doubled since the pandemic.

0:22:52 Melody Wilding: And for me, as someone who is a huge believer in personal agency, and that really being one of the driving forces of satisfaction and personal happiness, it was unacceptable to me that so many people felt that way. And working with the folks that I do, you know, I work with people that are more, again, emotionally sensitive, very perceptive, they feel jerked around by everything that’s happening around them.

0:23:20 Melody Wilding: And when you can really embrace and act on this idea that you teach people how to treat you, and when you show up differently, whether it’s in your communication, a simple thing like instead of throwing yourself under the bus with your communication to say, oh, I’m so sorry, or this isn’t a great idea, right. You’re signaling to people to not value what’s going to come next. And when you cut that out, when you can speak more directly and more confidently, how people, number one, how you feel about it changes.

0:23:55 Melody Wilding: But then how people respond to you also changes. And that’s, that’s what I mean by sort of shaping, shaping the environment around you. You have so much more control than you think to influence the direction that your career takes and the relationships that you have. Well, well said.

0:24:17 Ramona Shaw: And I love your motive there to provide or support people in developing their personal agency. What was something that surprised you?

0:24:27 Melody Wilding: A couple of things. I’m going to cheat and give you a few. Number one was that I ran across a stat that your manager has more impact on your mental health than your doctor, your therapist, and almost as much as your spouse. And that speaks to the fact that, you know, we, we need to learn this skill set. This is not just something you need when you have a difficult boss. This managing up is a approach.

0:25:01 Melody Wilding: It’s a stance, a more proactive stance you should have in your career, regardless of who you are managing. Because who you do report to could change on a dime. There could be a reorg tomorrow. Your boss could leave. You may never develop a great relationship with them, although I hope you do. But we have to learn how to work with imperfect people. They will be everywhere we go. And so that was really shocking to me that we spend 70, 80% of our time at work, yet so many of us don’t put a lot of effort and attention into being intentional about this relationship.

0:25:43 Ramona Shaw: Yeah. And I think we spend a lot of. At least leaders spend a lot of time thinking about their team, their direct reports, and how to cultivate strong relationships with them. And what I noticed when I asked the question, you know what do you appreciate that your. Some of your diet reports do that you really value as a leader? They would list, I want to say, 90% of the times anything that they say is what we would consider managing up.

0:26:13 Ramona Shaw: So it’s what the direct report does intentionally to strengthen that relationship and to create a better, more successful environment for themselves and making it easier on the. On the manager. And so then we look at. And how much of those do you. Those things that behaviors that you appreciate do you do with your boss? And it’s often interesting to hear sort of.

0:26:36 Melody Wilding: Huh.

0:26:36 Ramona Shaw: Yeah. I’ve never thought about that.

0:26:38 Ramona Shaw: Right.

0:26:39 Ramona Shaw: In some way or form. Because when we think about leadership, so much, never mind, so much of that is defined by the relationship between me and my direct reports and how little we actually allocate to that relationship that we have with our manager.

0:26:58 Melody Wilding: Yes. And just to build on that for a moment, another very surprising piece of research that I came across was that in terms of internal networks in an organization, the people who were more successful and also more satisfied were people who were brokers across different parts of the organization. And I think that’s important because it’s easy to get very focused on your relationship with your reports and your manager and not look around more broadly and think about, am I connecting across the matrix across departments cross functionally?

0:27:39 Melody Wilding: And when you can do that, when you can place yourself in that broker position of making introductions or being the person who’s translating between product and engineering, you know, two different parts of the org, you make yourself very, very valuable. And also just in. In when we talk about managing up, don’t let your boss be your single point of failure. Diversify who your allies, your advocates, who you have relationships with. Because you may not have positional power, but you could certainly have resource or informational power.

0:28:14 Melody Wilding: And I think that’s very important to be aware of because I know I’ve made that mistake in my career where I was so focused on just my little bubble that I didn’t look up and that came back to bite me.

0:28:27 Ramona Shaw: Yeah, yeah, Bosses leave. So we know organizations change, structures change. But it can also be that our boss isn’t just particularly self or advocating on our behalf in a very aware and effective way. And if we put too many eggs into that basket, we may miss an opportunity and we can’t control what they do. We can try to influence right and make it as easy as possible for them, but ultimately what they decide to level or to raise up to higher ups is outside of our control.

0:28:59 Ramona Shaw: Great point. Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you think would be important for the audience to know?

0:29:05 Melody Wilding: We touched briefly on the advancement conversation, but I know you have a lot of folks in your audience who do care about moving up and doing more in the organization. And I just want to say don’t fall into the performance review paradox, which is don’t wait until your performance review. That should not be the first time your manager is hearing about your aspirations. You need to start three, six months in advance to plant those seeds and have an explicit conversation around this is where I would like to be at the end of the year. I would like to grow my team from two to four people or I’d like to be leading these sorts of projects. What do you need to see from me to feel comfortable with me getting there?

0:29:47 Melody Wilding: Right. And so when you do that, then it’s not a surprise. Again, don’t let your manager be surprised. They can account for that in their planning and you can surface objections about your readiness, about who else may need to be involved. And so again, start sooner rather than later and ultimately you’ll be more successful with that.

0:30:09 Ramona Shaw: What a great point to end to end this conversation. Thank you for adding that as well. We wish you all the best for your book launch. We will include the link in the show notes. As I said, I know we’ve only read the books and we are only really touching on a small part of it. If you want to really get good at this skill and get those practical tips for Melody, you will very much enjoy grabbing the book and reading in more detail what she shares.

0:30:38 Ramona Shaw: Thanks for being on the podcast, Melody.

0:30:40 Melody Wilding: Thanks for having me. And just one quick note, you were also on my podcast and it was one of the most popular episodes. So I want to encourage everyone to to listen to it because it was really about preparing yourself for the next level. So I think it’s a great compliment to this conversation.

0:30:55 Ramona Shaw: Oh, awesome. Okay, we will link that in the show notes as well. Thank you for the Sharda Melody.

0:30:59 Ramona Shaw: If you enjoyed this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader people love to work with. This includes a free masterclass on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it out@archova.org/ masterclass. The second resource is my bestselling book, the Confident and competent New Manager how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out@archova.org/

0:31:26 Ramona Shaw: books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. You can find all those links in the show notes down below.