In today's episode, Tony is joined by Claire Newell, Marketing Manager and Abi Jackson, Senior Client Coordinator, to speak about management, a hot topic chosen because Tony is currently line manager to both!
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Claire Newell 00:09
Hello and a warm welcome to the Mayvin podcast. This episode is part of a special, new mini series called Conversations with Tony. Our Tony Nicholls has decided to stop working from the end of March 2025, he still finds it hard to use the R word, so we decided to make the most of him these last few weeks that we have him, and try to bottle his wisdom and experience, slash milk him for content before he goes. We will be releasing one of these short 10 minute episodes every week for the next eight weeks, which will take us up to his last week with us. Each episode will focus on a different topic, a different element of his time at Mayvin or his career at large. In today's episode, myself, Claire Newell, marketing manager and Abby Jackson, client coordinator, speak to our Tony about management. We chose this topic because Tony is currently line manager to us both. Leadership and management is a key part of what we deliver with clients and help them with and Tony's literally written the book, because he wrote his book managing change in organizations within which he talks about management and leadership. As our line manager, Abi asked him who's his favorite you're going to have to wait right until the end to find out his answer. Enjoy. Hi. I'm here today with Tony Nicholls, and I'm here with Abi, and we're going to talk to Tony as part of this podcast mini series that we're doing as part of Tony's not retirement, changing to not working mode. So Abi and I had a little conflab, and we thought we might talk to you about the topic of management, because you happen to line manage both of us at the moment, and it's a key part of what Mayvin delivers and helps our clients with and you've literally written the book, because you wrote your managing change in organizations book. So we thought it'd be a good, a good topic to speak to you about whilst you're still here.
Tony Nicholls 02:13
Okay, great. So let's start with managers I've had over the over my career, and you know what they've helped me with. So I've had some great managers. I've had privilege of having some fantastic leaders. I would call them leaders as well as managers, but they've been my line managers. A lot of those were women. So I was fortunate enough to move into sort of that development stroke, HR space, and therefore a lot of my peers and managers were women, and that's, I think that's had a significant impact on me in terms of helping me broaden my capabilities. I've also learned a lot from those who were not great managers, and I have one or two of those over my time and learning how not to do it in terms of, you know, command and control and being overly anxious and all those sorts of things. But broadly, I've had some good managers and great managers, and they've taught me how to be relational in my my aspects of a management practice, you know, how to develop great relationships and and to focus on development of capability in those around me, and to, you know, to do things that sound cliche, but are actually really important, like setting direction and being clear on purpose and also being clear on what you expect of people countabilities, things like that. So yeah, I've had some great managers over the time on my time. So how has it been? So let me throw it back at you. What? What's it like? Being managed by me, being led by me, whatever phrase we want to use,
Claire Newell 03:48
We're supposed to be asking the questions Tony!
Tony Nicholls 03:50
Oh, well, sorry. I'm throwing it back to you! I still have some authority in this organization.
Claire Newell 03:58
I do it publicly.
Abi Jackson 03:59
Cool. Let's go, oh, it's been brilliant for me. Absolutely brilliant. What I've what I've noticed more than any other manager I've had, you notice everything I do. It's like, and you and it's quite confrontational, but in a really, in a really good way, it's like, if I you'll ask me a question, and I'll shift to my seat, and you'll go, oh, that made you feel uncomfortable. Why? And it's challenging, and I have to then go, oh, yeah, it is because, rather than I have to notice my own reactions to questions that you asked me and things like that has been so helpful, it's been brilliant.
Tony Nicholls 04:37
So I think that's a particularly important point to note. You use the word noticing. So I write about this in the book a lot, it's a major chapter in the book, developing a capability to notice one's own presence, one's own reaction to situations, and therefore be able to respond to that in a maybe a way that you would do differently than you've done before. So noticing self, noticing others, noticing context, I think is a really important management capability. What about you Claire?
Claire Newell 05:03
Yeah, similar. I guess it stands out. I think we've worked together for a long time now, there's been a lot of trust brought up, and both ways. So I think you've given me a lot of trust and freedom to kind of get on with the job and trust me to do it. And I've really appreciated not hands off, but the opposite of micro managing, being given, sort of the freedom and the trust to kind of go with it, and knowing you're there for support, for encouragement, for validation, or backup, or whatever. You know there's a presence and you're there, but kind of giving me the reins. But then I think, a bit like Abi said, something that stands out is that, is that very gentle challenge, and kind of very gentle, like, do you think you should be doing that, or should someone else be doing that? Or, you know that thing that you're avoiding? Why are you avoiding that? That kind of very so it is, it is it is, like, it's a challenging, but not in a confrontational it's a very gentle, but you know, for your own sake and for the sake of your development, and I think it's knowing you've got half an eye on the the tasky stuff, the the day job stuff that needs to be done, but then you're also looking at my development side, And I think keeping on both those things, which I think my experience of managers in previous lives, it's, it's, it's all the task, and it's all sort of, are you doing your job? And it's just keeping on you and sort of grilling you, whereas I know that a lot of the way you manage me is less about the task, and it's building up my capability and my, you know, my, yeah
Abi Jackson 06:42
You always come away from a one to one with things to think about, right? Always, yeah, whether Yeah, always on a personal level,
Tony Nicholls 06:53
And I think, I think that's an important that's an important value for me, is that I look at the whole person and whatever it is that we need to talk about in order to help you feel better, perform better, take a rest, whatever it is is it can be part and parcel of the conversation, and that's what we pay attention to. If that's what you need to pay attention to, it isn't just task focused and task related. I think that's important. You know, it's allowing the whole person to show up and be appreciated and respected in the conversation. I think definitely Okay. So let me, let me respond to that. Say, Yes, great. Thank you. Good feedback but also,
Claire Newell 07:36
We'll tell you the bad stuff later,
Tony Nicholls 07:37
It's a two way, it's a two way process, because I am constantly learning. So I am open. I come to this relationship, open to the fact that you've got great ideas and you're very capable, and you do stuff better than I do in many, many cases. And therefore I'm always open to challenge and open to learning. And that's I will go away, similar to you, I will go away from our one to ones and interactions, thinking, and that's interesting. So again, from a from a leader, manager, direct report, relationship perspective, it isn't just a top down one way traffic. It is a is it is a meeting, in many ways, for me, a meeting of equals. I happen to have a position that means I've got oversight of this activity, and but you're doing it, and therefore there's got to be a two way exchange of information, ideas, and I will go away equally developed through our conversations. And I think that's an important mindset to have, a manager or a leader who thinks they know it all, and it's all about trying, taking what's in my head and giving it to you, I think is not, it's not the right process. It's an emergent relational process.
Claire Newell 08:51
So how does that relate to you've talked about your experience of being managed and and our experience of you managing us, yeah. And so as a you've got the sort of third element of you as a consultant. So you quite often go in and talk to managers slash leaders. And I know you've got some thoughts about the terms manager and leader as well. So how does that compare your kind of internal experiences be the manager and managing us versus helping manager leaders as a client?
Tony Nicholls 09:20
Yeah as a client. So, you know, if you want to, if you want to know more about my perspectives on leadership, management, you know, there is a book I've written about it. It's the first chapter. But I think a couple of things come to mind. I go back to what we just talked about in terms of noticing and developing, broadening one's worldview. I think that's a critical thing that we can do to support leadership and management development is, is, you know, this difference between what we call horizontal and vertical development. Horizontal is giving people more tools at the level of thinking that they're already at. Vertical development is is broadening their worldview. They start to see the world differently. So managers who who think their organization is complicated, yes, but it's like a machine. You can pull a lever over here and something predictable happens over here, versus a manager who thinks that actually starts to recognize their organization as as a complex human system. And when you pull over here, lever over here, sometimes you get unpredictable results over there, because humans are in the in that process, and they make sense of things differently, and sometimes odd things pop up. So that, for me, is a vertical development, and I think that broadening one's worldview about what it is to be leading and managing a human system with all the messiness that goes on, I think, is an important aspect of what we do within Mayvin. I think the second one for me, personally, in terms of what is it I find myself most often helping my direct reports with is their transitions through levels of management. So from non manager to team leader, from team leader to manager of managers, from to director level, etc. So what does it mean to transition between those levels and to start to show up differently, think differently, support them in a way that lifts them up and allows them to step up. I think that's a really important piece. One of the books I read, sort of back in 2010 that was really important in this space was leadership pipeline, by Sharon drotter and Noel. That's quite an important book to talks about the transitions between the different levels that you need to pay attention to. Quite important lesson for me that's sort of a couple of things. I think it's around noticing and around transitions into different levels of leadership. Good conversation. Thank you. Thank you for the warm words and thank you for being such fantastic members of the team and making my life as a manager so much easier because you do your hard work as well.
Abi Jackson 11:50
One last question, who's your favorite?
Tony Nicholls 11:54
Well, if they're in the room, I tell you, yeah, okay, there you go. You asked for it
Abi Jackson 12:03
Absolutely!
Tony Nicholls 12:04
All right, see you soon.
Abi Jackson 12:06
Thanks Tony. Bye.
Claire Newell 12:08
Thank you so much for listening to us today, and we hope to see you next time. Take care. Bye, bye.