Leading from the Middle:
Trust Building Behaviors for Managing Up & Across

All right. Awesome. Good morning, everybody. We are so thrilled to have you here. We have an awesome presentation that we're super excited about to share with everybody. Before we jump into the good stuff, I'm just going to take a little moment to introduce Culture Community and the park and just know a little bit more about us. What is Culture Community? Jess, do I move to the next slide? Perfect. We are a group of people passionate about being great leaders, intentionally building cultures, and building community. An awesome way to start building community this morning is I would like everybody on the call to, in the chat, throw your name and where you're from and just see all the different amazing places that we're going to be reaching this morning and gathering together in this space. While I'm doing the rest of the introductions, feel free to throw it on in there. We love to see it. This is a space to learn, grow. It is truly to connect with one another. We love hearing all the connections that are made from culture community outside of the space. Really this morning, we want everybody to feel inspired and activated to make a positive change in the world.

We're really happy to bring topics here to inspire that. Next month, we are meeting again monthly. It's going to be on May 23rd, and we're going to be talking about Delegating with Purpose. How to empower your team with clarity and confidence while delegating cast to them. We have our amazing teammate, Stephiano, who will be leading that discussion. That will be a great topic as well. That is a little bit about Culture Community. I'm going to pass things over to Leah to talk about The Perk.

Hey, team. It's the best day of the month. It's Culture Community Day. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Leah Ro. I am the founder of The Perk. We are Premier Leadership and Culture Development Studio, and it is our mission to build the world's best leaders. And one of the ways in which we do that is by having our monthly Culture Community event. So thank you all for being here today to invest in yourself, to learn, grow, and develop, and become one of the world's best leaders. So there are a lot of other companies out there who do what we do, who do leadership development, who do culture development. But what sets us apart, what makes us different is our approach in how we do what we do. With everything that we do, we make it fun. We really believe that true learning, growth, and development can't happen if people don't want to show up, if they don't enjoy where they're at. So we make it fun. We also meet people where they're at. We make it human. We make it safe. It is our job as trained, certified coaches to create and hold a safe and courageous space for people to get vulnerable, to get outside of their comfort zones, to truly learn, grow, and develop.

One of the big things about us here at The Perk is that we make it custom. We don't have off-the-shelf offerings. You're never going to see the same show twice. We take the time to really get to know our clients, understand who you are, who you want to be, what your culture is, what your goals are. And we customize all of our programming to help you hit the results that you want to hit. And last but not least, we make it last. So we're not just coming in for quick shots of inspiration. We are coaching, training, and developing on skills and mindsets that are going to have long lasting positive impact for your people. So that's how we do what we do. Now, what are we best known for? We do a lot of different projects, a lot of different fun things with our clients. But what we are most known for is our Custom Leadership Development program. Those are 6-12 month programs. They include live leadership training, group coaching, one-on-one coaching. We are also known for our team workshops. They are high energy, they are high impact. They can be two hours or they can be a whole series.

We're also known for our exec retreats, and last but not least, our CLEAR Leadership Training program. This is a seven-month certification program that really focuses on training you and your people on the core elements of great leadership today. A little bit about us at the perk. Now, I'll pass it back over to Emily to introduce our incredible speaker today.

Amazing. A little bit about Jess. Jess Ken Johnson is a coactive leadership development coach and culture consultant with 15 years of experience in people operations, leadership development and culture design. Her experience bridges diverse sectors from SaaS and eLearning to hands-on worlds of manufacturing and distribution. Jess is passionate about empowering organizations to cultivate innovation and collaboration for maximum results. So without further ado, I'll turn things over to Jess.

Yeah, good morning. I'm really excited to see everybody. I know we have a big group today, so I'd like to kick it off first with a quick poll, which is ultimately asking, what is your role today? Are you an individual contributor? Are you managing a team of people? Are you a director or VP? Or are you a C-suite executive? I'll have our team kick that off. You should see that little poll right in front of you. We'll give everybody a minute to respond. As well as if you had to choose which topic feels most important to you right now, we really want to know your perspective. I know we're talking about both building behaviors managing up, so with your leader, as well as managing across with crossfunctional teams and departments. There is no right answer, but we just love knowing that. All right. I'll go ahead and have our team end that poll. I'm curious, what were the results? Let's see. It looks like the majority of us really can't choose between leading from the middle and leading across. We've got about 50% really looking at that cross-functional approach, and then about 38% that really can't choose.

Both are important. That's very helpful for me. Today, we'll have a little bit of discussion and feedback from you all. I want you to know that if you do have a question, you can pop it in the chat. You can also raise your hand, and my team will help me if I don't see you on the first round. Just shout out, Hey, I have a question, and you're welcome to stop me, and we'll go from there. A little bit about me. I'm a CTI Certified Leadership and Executive Coach, and part of what that means is that when I am working with the perk, I get a chance to bring my own experience, what it was like to be leading teams and people across many different roles. As the former VP of Professional Services and Customer Success, I got a chance to see, Okay, what is the difference between when I have access directly to the executive team, the board conversations that are being held, as well as how do I communicate that back to my teams and their teams? For today, I'd love to know, and people can either shout this out or write this in the chat, what do you think of when you hear the words managing up?

Don't be shy. You can just shout them out. No thoughts. Better communication, Feedback, I see. Yeah.

A lot. Explaining what you're doing and why it's important to someone in a bigger role.

Yeah. Helping Helping your manager understand alternative perspectives. I like that. Advocating for yourself. Influence. Yeah, these are really good. Now, when you think about managing across, what comes up for you? Collaboration. Moving your work forward through helping your supervisor understand. Yeah. Communication, trust in partnerships, building relationships, managing conflict. Yeah, these are all really good. Yeah, it is all of these things. One of the reasons that I'm excited to see everyone, and we had record interest in this topic, and the research shows that we know that it's a weird time and place in the labor market to be an employee, to be working with an organization. Certain industries have labor shortages right now. There's a lot of employee activism, unionizing people, making their voices heard with the shift to more hybrid work. A lot of folks were pushed post-pandemic into completely virtual work, if at all possible. Now we're starting to see a swing back to hybrid work where people are all over the place, and sometimes they're sharing physical location either all the time or are just part of the time. There's a huge interest in leadership development. People want to grow, as well as companies that are moving from that higher to grow model to really being pressured to focus on productivity and redesign.

Some of the churn, some of the changes you're seeing with organizations, some of the layoffs that we're seeing are really focused on how do we navigate this market. There's a lot of automation happening as well. This research is by Josh Berson, who's an analyst and researcher in the HR space. One of the things that he highlighted, as well as what Mercer and Human Capital Trends report has shown, is that employees are under a lot of stress. I probably don't need to tell you that. If you are feeling burnout, it's something that is apparent to you. But people are reporting up to 81% of people surveyed in 2023 were feeling at risk of burnout. That's a huge number. One of the things that I took away from that is that it's a hard time to just be working in the world. But also, employees are really what drive a company's mission forward. Without employees as part of the team, there would be no work happening. We also know that middle managers who are being surveyed are under real stress, so a lot of folks are feeling a lack of support from the top. 58% that were interviewed by the predictive index were not confident that their concerns were heard when approaching executives about something that they thought was really important.

Only 7% of middle managers said that they had complete and total authority over the areas that they manage. 8 and 10 were at risk of burnout from the stress of managing people. I think we're We're also seeing a lot of trends where people were nervous about staying in a managerial role and even looking at, Oh, I used to have it really good when I only had to worry about my own work. We're also seeing folks choosing to be individual contributors again. Then 55% say, Too heavy a workload is the foremost hurdle keeping middle managers from being more productive. All of these things are why we want to teach managers and people even that our individual contributors, how they can build relationships, build trust, communicate about those issues that are important, and really bridge the gap. Because executives, if they're not directly in there, and they really shouldn't be in the weeds all the time. That's not strategic for their role. Without that communication, we really can feel burned out, stressed out, and we have a lot of friction as we're trying to accomplish the tasks and that strategic vision that's been laid out for the company.

We know that you or your people in the middle are extremely important. The predictive index said that given middle management acts as the link between everyone from early talent and executives, their productivity is crucial to every company's operations and that we really need to prioritize this. I'm passionate about that I know that folks will often ask, Well, what can I do? I don't really feel. I don't have the role or maybe the title that necessarily grants me access to controlling processes or policies or the way we do things here. But what we can do is focus your energy on things you can control. If you can't control it, how can you influence it or shift your own mindset so that it is a productive, empowering, enjoyable experience as you're working? I think of it as we either work out how to communicate and make things better or we get worked out. It's an exercise for us. Some people enjoy a certain level of challenge, but we don't want to be exhausted and burned out at the end of the day. All right, so let's start with managing up. I asked you what you thought of when you heard the word managing up, and here are a few other definitions of what it entails.

It's building a relationship with your boss or team lead, whoever's supervising you. It's cultivating a productive working rapport, understanding their management, leadership, and communication styles, increasing your awareness of your own styles, and then also adapting and aligning your styles so that you can maximize your own productivity enjoyment, enjoyment, and engagement. Ultimately, when I think of managing up, it is taking that control of your own career, of your own productivity. It's giving you power that maybe you don't always know or feel connected to. However, managing up is not supervising or overseeing your boss. It's not coming in and doing their job for them. It's not going above your boss's head to get your voice heard. What we're talking about today is not how to politic, how to judge your boss's management style or evaluate their performance. Feedback can be really healthy and is important, and we'll talk about that. But what we are not talking about is leading a mutiny among the team or a coup or anything like that. There may be other resources out there, but that's not really the Our work is really all about how do we build trust because that is the healthiest way to resolve issues and move the vision forward.

Some of the reasons that managing up is really important is it strengthens the communication. It helps build that trust and rapport. It helps you feel engaged and avoid anything that's an unhealthy conflict. I want to call out that there is a really powerful, important place for healthy conflict, but the goal there is that it's productive, that at the end of it, we have learned more, we understand each other better, and we're getting the outcomes and results that we're looking for. It also helps you feel or avoid feeling resentment and frustration. It gives you and your leader the opportunity to grow, shows your own leadership skills. So even if you're not a team yet, this is a way to be a leader where you are right now, increases work productivity and meaning, and it empowers your ownership of your experience of work. I'd just like to take a minute and have you think about who cares most about your career? Who cares most about your job satisfaction? Who Who does your happiness at work impact the most? Who's most impacted by your career development? What would the ability and confidence to manage upward bring you? What's coming up for folks as I ask these questions?

Yeah, Tom was brave. Tom said me.

Yeah, Jess, I can jump in. I would say me, but then who's impacted by my career development? My family. As an entrepreneur, the ability and confidence to manage upwards is clients and positive, healthy relationships with clients.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, also spouse and colleagues. Yeah, thank you, Diana. Yes, it's true. I know when I entered the workforce, especially coming out of school, where you really have this hierarchy and teachers are teaching you the things, you are learning the things, you're getting evaluated on the things, and at the end of it, you get automatically promoted to the next step. Coming into a career in a workforce where it's a lot more nuanced than that and opportunity and connections and relationships have as much to do with anything as your knowledge, That felt really different for me. I was thrown in to... I accepted a job where I was project managing very large multimillion dollar projects at the age of 24. There was an infrastructure that the company had created, and some of the folks on this call have worked at that same company, that helps like a boot camp to teach you how to manage and collaborate with people that you don't directly oversee or report to. It also meant that we had to continually be reporting progress to a manager who wasn't necessarily on site in that project all the time. What I realized is if I wanted to be happy, productive if I needed to make progress, but I was feeling like, Oh, I'm 24.

Not everyone I work with here respects me yet or understands my credibility. Yes, I have this knowledge, but how do I turn that into influence and relationships? It can feel really hard. One of the things that we can do is being really intentional about how to manage to launch up. At the perk, we know that strong organizational cultures are built on a foundation of these three things, communication, alignment, and trust. If you have a culture problem. If there's conflict or frustration, it's one of these three things. At least, it could even be a combination of all three things. But 90% of the time, it's really a trust issue. This It also translates into our reporting relationships. If you have tension in a reporting relationship with your boss, it is also going to be one of these three things, communication, alignment, or trust. What we're going to talk about today are three top tips for how you build trust upward with whoever is supervising or overseeing you. We try to use alliteration where we can. It's connect, commit, and be clear. First, the first tip to connect is really a core behavior that we highlight for everyone, even if you are an individual contributor, connecting with the people that are around you.

Because we trust people that we feel connected to. At its core, trust is about relationships, and real, true relationships are built through genuine, meaningful connections. We trust the people that lead us and our teammates who show or demonstrate that they care about us on a personal and professional level. When I feel seen, heard, and valued in a relationship, I'm more likely to trust that person. It goes both ways. One of the things that you can do with your leader is to really focus on being curious and leading with empathy when you're in the room with them. There can be this perceived notion that, well, they're the boss. They clearly are in this role for a reason. They must be deemed better at this, or there's a reason that they're there. Sometimes if we have that mindset, we forget that really they're a human, too. They are navigating a lot of complex situations. Sometimes they have information we don't have. Even the executives, the more you work with leaders, realize we're all still, at the end of the day, we're humans and we're coming home to families and priorities that we care about. Ask yourself, what expectations and assumptions do I have about my manager?

Is there a need that I have that isn't being met? Is there a need that they have that isn't being met? If you were in their role, what would you want? Start to yourself into their shoes. With the information that you're aware of, you can also start to consider what's it like to be where they are, and also get really curious about what's their communication and behavioral style, and also be aware of your own. Often, it feels more natural when you have a very similar style to your leader. Where this can be really challenging is when you're paired or partnered with a leader whose style is completely different. I don't know if anyone has ever... I am a very high I, which we'll talk about on the Disk Behavioral Style. But when I walk into a room with a very high D behavioral style, someone who really appreciates getting to the point, a very quick pace. I need to stop with the stories. I need to have a very concise amount of information, and I want to respect their time and meet them where they are. And the same is true, I can communicate what I need to really feel engaged and empowered when I am aware of my own style and how it's really different from some of my leaders, too.

Let's talk about DISC. Just a quick show of hands. How many folks are familiar with this acronym? Okay. Yeah. There are a lot of folks industry-wide. There are a lot of people that use DISC. Disk This is a universal language of how we, humans, do what we do. I like to really highlight that it's a neutral language, which means there is no better or worse DISC behavioral style. I'll say that again. There's no better or worse disk behavioral style. It's just different. Now, there's healthy and unhealthy ways of displaying that style, but it really is truly neutral. It focuses on how people approach problems, other people, pace, and procedures. Let's annotate. If you have access to... If you're sitting in front of a computer, I think you can also do this on your smartphone. But I'd love to have folks use the Annotate button, which you should see to the left-hand side of your screen. Anybody see I'm going to take that, Annotate. It looks like a little pencil. You might also have it down at the bar. It's a little pencil that says Annotate. Choose a stamp. I'm just going to choose a dot here.

It's a little checkmark or a heart. Go ahead and put yourself where you think you might be based on this description. For folks that really are results-oriented, drivers, competitive, you like to move fast, you'd like to check things off, you're a very task-oriented person, that's a D or dominance. I is influence, persuasive, inspiring, enthusiastic, You'll notice they're also very outgoing and fast-paced, but they're more people-oriented. Stabilizing are amiable, democratic, and patient. They're a little more reserved or appreciate a slower pace. Cs are cautious, analytical, detail-oriented, and systematic. You also really love a checklist, you're task-oriented, you want to get things done, but you also like maybe a more steady or slower pace. We've got folks that are all over the board here. Yeah, that's lovely. I will say that when we do assessments with folks, everybody has a mix of these things. No one is 100% all one of these things. Typically, they fall in a range, but it can be helpful to know what your leading or dominant style is. Here. All right, let's see. Then I might ask... There we go. We're going to clear it. When you are thinking about connecting with your manager, I've included a clue sheet, and this is in the slides as well.

If you want these afterwards, if you don't know what someone's official style is, especially your manager, and maybe it hasn't come up yet, you can ask them. We encourage you to ask them, Hey, what's your style? They may use certain words to describe themselves. If they are active, forceful, direct, they really hate wasting time or indecision, they might be a higher D. You can use some of these tips and tricks to adapt your style when you know that you're going to be meeting with them or having an important presentation or conversation. This can be something you can do before your annual review, reflect a little bit about how do they share information, what do they appreciate, and tailor your conversation that way. Influence might be more talkative, emotional, sometimes impulsive. If you're showing up to them and you have a checklist and you just start with business, it's not going to build as much trust as if you a warm and friendly environment, connect on something personal, make sure you put the details in writing so they can reflect back on it later, but you don't want to be too driving on facts and figures and data.

The same is true. If you're a C, very high C, or your boss is a very high C, and you come in as an influence, an I, and you are telling all these stories, and you're like, Oh, I feel like this might be the right decision, but they really appreciate having evidence and details, and you come in and you don't have anything like that, they're not going to make a decision right away because they're going to say, I need facts, I need data. This is a clue sheet on how you can approach people of different styles. If you were dealing with a leader that was in compliance, something you want to do is prepare your case in advance, stick to business, be accurate and realistic. You want to avoid being too casual or informal or pushing too hard on unrealistic deadlines. Don't show up as disorganized or messy because that'll really turn them off. Dominance. If your boss seems to be more of a D, you also want to be clear, specific, brief and to the point, stick to business, and be prepared with some support material. If you've ever had to create what's called an S bar or an executive summary or a decision document, you know that we're constantly trying to get that into a single page or a very simple bullet-pointed list.

That's because that clear specificity really helps folks at that D-level or behavioral style make decisions. Steadiness. If your boss is more of an S, you want to begin with a personal comment. Break the ice, get to know them. If you know them well, you don't have to spend as much time breaking the ice. But yeah, just don't come in and pound them over the head with your facts and figures. It's a little different than your D leadership. Then I, of course, provide a warm and friendly environment. Don't deal with a lot of details. Make sure you're putting them in writing. You can also ask feeling questions to draw their opinions or comments. A question we use a lot is, what is coming up for you? How do you feel about this? I'm curious. Think about, you I don't have to say it, but what styles are most likely to be outside your comfort zone? Those are the ones where you can be really intentional. The places that make us feel a little bit nervous are most likely to be areas where maybe we could work on a little bit. All right. Here are some specific questions you can ask your leader and weave these into your one-to-ones or in passing, if you have team meetings and you get a chance to connect with them, ask them about their vision.

How does their personal vision tie into the mission and vision of the organization? What is it that really inspires them and excites them? Why do they choose to lead here? What's your leader's purpose? What are they hoping to accomplish? You can talk about their goals. Why do they choose to lead at all? What does your leader value? See if it aligns with your understanding of what you think their disk style might be. You can even ask them, Hey, what do you really care about? Or what really inspires you, makes you feel good? The other way to know about this is what are your red flags? If someone has a red flag about something that breaks their trust, it usually points to something that they really care about. That's how to connect is making sure that you are meeting them with their communication style and leading with that empathy and curiosity. The next thing is to commit. That core behavior is because we trust people when they do the things they say they're going to do. If you've ever worked with someone that said, Yes, I will absolutely do that, and then they show up and they dropped the ball, that is a fast track to breaking trust.

I like to think of it as reliability equals credibility. One of the fastest ways to destroy trust is to make commitments that you can't keep. We also say, What's your say-do ratio? I think this came from one of our clients. The idea is if you say you're going to do 10 things, but you only do four of those things, that's a really terrible ratio of what you say to what you do. You can focus on how do you commit to things that are truly realistic, don't over promise, and also how do you communicate if there's going to be a discrepancy for folks that work in customer success, customer service, if you're managing expectations of clients or vendors or partners, this is incredibly important and a huge part of what you do every day. You can apply that also to the relationships internally in your organization and with your manager. I'm curious, for folks, what's the biggest challenge that you see in your current role in making this say-do ratio even better? Knowing that no one's perfect, but what constraints or things make it difficult sometimes? I'll pick on... Actually, I'm going to pick on Isabel.

What comes up for you when I ask about this say-do ratio?

I relate to what Leah said, thinking that I can do it all, and then I just don't have enough hours in the day. That's usually where my discrepancy falls with my say-do ratio.

For sure. I have been there, too. What's one other thing that comes up for you when I ask about say-do ratio?

I like what Wendy said about getting excited about stuff, and I find that I fall into that category, too.

I get really excited to do things. Yeah, for sure. I know another thing that can feel like a lot of pressure is if you've gotten in trouble for not not saying yes to something. Sometimes there are situations or people we work with. We've learned these behaviors over time. We're always doing, maybe not always, I can't say always, but we're often acting in the ways that make us feel like we will be safe, like people will approve, and that we have seen and observed will not get us in trouble. Sometimes we'll say, Yes, I can absolutely do that, thinking, I don't want to get in trouble, so I'm going to say yes, because that's the expectation. But the reality is, I don't have all the resources I need, or I could do this, but I don't know where to begin. The more trust you have with your boss and bring these things to them to say, Hey, I would like to deliver on this, but I need X, is a little bit of a way to say, I need help to increase my say-do ratio. Sometimes there are constraints that you can work with, and I realize it's not always magic.

We can't magically always hire three extra people. Sometimes there are constraints that the organization is working in, but you can discuss that and have that conversation and explain what it is that you're seeing that maybe your boss isn't seeing. They may have some information that you don't have and be able to share that with you, too. The other thing I like to say is bad news never gets better with time, and especially on projects or initiatives where you know that you need to tell somebody something they don't want to hear. It is always better to do it earlier in the process, do not get to the end of the process, and then share that information. We often tend to avoid things that are going to be really hard conversations. But the better you get at this, the more trust you will actually I've worked with clients who we had to... When I was in the tech world, we had some hard conversations with clients to say, Hey, we know that we said we could deliver this feature. It's going to take an extra sprint. We wanted to tell them early in advance so that they could plan accordingly.

If they had workflows or expectations about how they were going to use that feature, they're not building it into the training manuals, and so it minimizes the risk on their end as well. Some of those clients who we thought, Oh, no, we'll lose those clients, they actually came back and said, We trust you more because we know you will tell us something real as opposed to leading us down this path and trying to save face. That's a huge trust builder with your manager as well. If you're going to miss a deadline or an expectation, talk to them about it. They'll be way happier you did that than if you show up and you go, Oh, I tried really hard and I just couldn't get it across the finish line. So early alert. Cfa. There we go. Hi, again. We say that expectations exist no matter what. They're either stealth or they're clear. Stealth means that they are unspoken expectations. They're things we haven't put words to, but we just assume. Clear expectations are when you know exactly what is expected and you've discussed it, it's written down, you know that there's alignment. You want to avoid stealth expectations, which is when you expect the other person to read your mind or that your interpretation and their interpretation are the same.

When we have stealth expectations, it leads to really big breakdowns and barriers to progress. This is often something we see when we're not getting something that we want. But if you really take a moment to reflect, you can see, Oh, I didn't communicate that specific detail, or there's something about it that we're not closing the loop on in that communication loop. An example is missing a major deadline due to a delay from a counterpart. If you're collaborating with someone and you're going to miss a major deadline, but they don't know that they need to complete their step before they hand it off to you and you're going to do some review afterward, that's an example of a stealth expectation expectation. That's why it's really important to make sure that you're setting those clear expectations early on and checking in on them. Sometimes we know that things move and are very fast paced, and so you want to make sure that you are constantly connecting in and aligning on what are those expectations. Disappointment. Disappointment can feel like a lot of things. It's the root of a lot of resentment, frustration, stress, and it comes from the result of unmet expectations.

If you're ever feeling disappointed, frustrated, or resentful of your leader, which happens, it just happens because we're all human. Take some time to think about why your expectations weren't met. First, ask yourself, were they stealth? Had I communicated clearly what I was hoping for or what was what I was expecting? Or was I hoping they would just know and assumed that they would meet me there? Did the other person not understand? And was there an opportunity to build more trust? And this puts it, yes, this is something that you can control and evaluate. And sometimes the answer to these is, yes, I did these things. And that frames a different conversation that you can delve into. But first start with yourself and say, What expectations can I set more clearly from where I am? Some examples of ways you can do this with your boss are you can send the agenda. Some people have software or very specific templates they use for one-to-one meetings. Make sure you're building in time to prioritize that and establish your own clear expectations in that conversation. Ask if you can add in or if there's a section where I know we use a one-to-one form that asks, How would you like to use this meeting?

Being clear about how do you want to spend this time makes you both feel like it was valuable. You can discuss the things you both want to prioritize. What would success for this meeting look like? Be clear about, are you looking for collaboration when you bring something to your leader? Are you looking for a decision? Are you looking for help? Do you want advice or coaching? Those can be different. Advice is, do this thing. It's consultative. Coaching is, well, help me get unstuck. Help me work through problems. Help me be empowered. The next thing you can do is share your own communication style and discuss what effective management means for you. What were the things that leaders that you loved working with did really well? What behaviors build trust for your boss? What can I do to build trust with you? And also what behaviors build trust for me? So I want my leader to know that if they constantly cancel the meeting that I'm trying to schedule with them and they never give me any follow-up or reasons for it, that starts to break my trust. And as an employee, I have a choice of where I work.

I mean, yes, there's a lot that... I'm not saying that that in and of itself would be enough to make me want to leave, but little things like that erode trust over time. Be clear with them about what it is that you need to be managed effectively. Then When you are accepting work, clarify what done means and by what time they need it. We often at the Perk use the term paint done. I think this is from a story where I want to say it was a husband and wife, and the wife asked the husband to paint the wall, and so he did a single wall. And what she really meant was, I need you to do the trim. I need you to flush out around the windows. Don't just give me what she thought was a sloppy job. You've got to look at all the details. And so when you're really clear about the expectations, think about what needs to be true for it to be considered done, when do they need it, and what should I do if I need help, have questions, or are behind? So when you When you are accepting work, when someone's delegating something to you or getting you to work on a new project or initiative, make sure you understand the answers to these because it helps you meet their expectations and eliminates a lot of friction.

Other ways that you could communicate upward is, again, taking ownership of those strong one-to-ones and co-creating how they work, as well as when you are reporting back on progress, make sure you're building strong progress reports, executive summaries. We called them S-bars, which was situation. I'm going to blank on it now because it's been a minute since I've used these. But it's an acronym that helps you summarize a problem and make recommendations. And think about how might you incorporate your disk or communication style and meet them where their behavioral style is. And also, don't wait until a formal template to communicate progress. If something is smoky, you want to share that information, even if it's not progress report time. I like to ask this, when is the best time to fight a fire? Anyone know this one? Before it starts. Heck, yeah. Absolutely. When is the second best time to fight a fire? It's when you see it. Even if you can't be perfect in this area, maybe you didn't see the smoke, but the fire is happening, don't delay. Sound the alarm. Managers trust people who will take urgent action and bring things up. The more you do this, the more your professional discernment will will also be formed along the way.

Again, this is something you can talk to your leader about, which is, how do you want me to sound the alarm? What things are alarmworthy? That will help with not feeling like you're over alarming or under-alarming at the time. All right, so I'm going to move into managing across. I have a call to action for you. Will you talk about trust with your leader in some way in the next couple of weeks? Anybody willing to say, Thumbs up, yes? All right. You can do this. Ask and share, what is your purpose for leading? You can share this, too. Or what is your purpose for working here? What do you love about it? What behaviors build trust for you and them? What behaviors break trust for you and them? And what expectations do you want to set? And spoiler alert, when we talk about managing across, a lot of these skills are things you do with your peers and your crossfunctional departments as well. When we talk about managing across, this is where you have collaboration between teams. Oftentimes, we have different leaders. It's where you're trying to influence people laterally, even though you don't have a direct report relationship and you're building trust with others among the organization.

This is where you can really manage across with anyone in your organization. It does not matter what role they're in. If you need to collaborate, communicate, and build a relationship, you are attempting to manage across. This is how you overcome silos and build strategic alignment among teams. This is how you navigate power dynamics and strengthen culture, use your diverse skills. That means that there are strengths, even with the team where you have the most tension and maybe you see things really differently, there are strengths there that in an ideal world, you really harness those and bring those together, and the company is better for it. This is also how you manage productivity and influence performance when you need something to be done. But again, you can't control them or make them do it. Yeah, spoiler alert. I said this already. I ruined my spoiler alert, but it's building trusting relationships. With Josh Bertsen, we come back to his evaluation of just the labor market and what it's like to work in the world. He highlighted in his HR predictions for 2024, the history of how our organizations and companies have changed. It used to be that was very hierarchical.

I think in many ways, the military, because there's a very clear chain of command and you do what is ordered. You've got someone at the top and it branches down. That's how other companies and businesses used to run as well more frequently. Pretty much everyone had a very similar hierarchical structure. Now we are in a world where technology and culture and expectations and the type of work we're doing have all influenced us. The way that how things are is that we are more networked than ever before. Instead of having that hierarchy, we're doing a lot of cross-functional collaboration more than any other time in modern work history. Companies are now a subset of teams and projects. There's shared values and culture that build up. There's goals and projects. In an ideal situation, people are rewarded for their skills and abilities, not necessarily their position or title. That's where we see more recognition and even total compensation rewards when it comes to more of a meritocracy, it's how well are you doing at the organization, not what is your title. What this means is these skills of building trust are incredibly important among among your other teams as well.

I know we don't have a ton of time, but I wanted to just have folks, if you want to share in the chat, what is an area that feels difficult to manage across right now, and what would it be like if you could get in sync? Yeah. How to achieve a shared vision. You get your priorities aligned. Yeah, thanks, John. Tasha says, Other teams' processes, or sometimes, if they don't have a process in place, impacting your team. Working across divisions. Absolutely. The more you practice these things, this is also what leadership is looking for in the next level of leadership. This is also a great way to and grow in your career. The better you do this, the more prepared you are and, oh, my gosh, how many hiring managers and leaders are looking for people who can work across these cross-functional departments. It's not just, Well, my department crushed all our objectives and key results. This department over there, they're lagging. But it's not my business. It's really more about how are we moving the vision forward together? I hear it's challenging We're going to get on the same page about Timelines and expectations.

Let's talk about how to do this. This is, again, communication, alignment, and trust. I love this triangle. I would print it out. When you have a peer relationship problem between teams, it's an issue of communication, alignment, or trust. Again, 90% of the time, trust is the most the lowest common denominator when you boil it down. The first step is to identify which areas need work. Set some time to sit down and think about the tension. Think about the concept at a very broad level and ask yourself, do we have an issue with communication? Do we have an issue with alignment around the same goals? Or do we not trust each other? Or is it a combo? For the sake of time, I'm going to pass this along, but you can also remember DISC, which is use these skills with people on other teams. Certain teams have different skill sets and might even have similarities and personalities or behavioral styles among them. And so think about it at that level as well, which is, yes, maybe I've been communicating in my I style, but I'm working with an engineering team, and a lot of their folks are really Ss and C's.

The way that I've been sharing information rubs them the wrong way or there's something not clicking. And so you can try to update your communication to meet them and incorporate more of the strategy to work with their behavioral style. One thing I like to remind folks is try not to stereotype people. This is not about saying, Oh, you are such an eye. Really, it's more about sharing what you think your style is, what you prefer for communication, asking them, being really curious and empathetic with them and use this as a resource. The idea, again, is there is no better or best disk behavioral style. It is just variety and difference. It's really about inclusion. Inclusion and helping people connect with each other. Here are a couple of examples of ways you can really meet people where they are. If you're working cross-collaboratively with folks that you think are a D, wherever possible, find ways for them to either take ownership over specific projects or tasks. They're, again, fast-paced and task-oriented. If you have something more tangible for them to work with, they're going to feel good if they know exactly what the expectations and goals are so they can feel like they're winning.

For your eyes, look for opportunities for them to collaborate and work with other people. If you have informal roles and responsibilities that you're assigning out, get I's to oversee things like team activities or building an icebreaker for a meeting. S's really can make amazing project managers. If there are ways for them to keep things on track, you can give them or ask for them to help with certain tasks like that, recognize them for their loyalty and dependability, just because they may not be the first one across a finish line, but they're really dependable and reliable that can build so much trust when you see and hear and value them. Then C's, ask them to bring statistics, research, and charts. That is their cup of tea. They They are all about the data. Again, these are generalizations. Everybody has a balance of these, but give them more opportunities to reflect on questions. They may be the folks that are slower to think of a response, but when that response comes, it's going to be incredibly powerful. If you give a little bit of time for reflection there, it's helpful. All right. If you take anything away from this Every day, research shows that a lack of trust affects your bottom line for your team, for your department, for your managing relationship with your peers, and for the company more than anything else.

It touches everyone. Trust doesn't happen by default. It's something you really do have to build and grow, and you have to be intentional about building it with your leader and your peers. Our behaviors, the things we do every day, are what build trust one little brick at a time. It's not like you can overhaul trust all at once, but these are things you can incorporate and shift in your own behavior to meet them where they are. If you're trying to repair trust, it's important to know and communicate what behaviors build and break trust for you so that your teammates aren't breaking that trust unintentionally. Sometimes they have no idea. I would say often they have no idea that they would never think that, Oh, I'm breaking trust with you. That conversation, that communication is helpful. It's important to know what breaks and builds trust for your leaders and peers as well. That way, you might have no idea that this small thing that you don't necessarily notice is huge for them. It's the trash or the dishes conversation. In households where you have a roommate or you're partnered with somebody, I notice the dishes more frequently.

My husband notices the trash. I'll let this trash go for way too long, just try to shove it back in. That is the worst thing for him. For me, I'm like, get these dishes out of the sink. Just rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. For me, that's huge. Have the trash versus dishes conversation with your peers and your leaders? What are the things that really stand out to them? Anyone willing to talk about trust with your cross-functional team? Heck, yeah. I see a couple nods. That's great. It's a courageous thing to do. Ask them and share what behaviors build trust for you, what behaviors break trust for you. This may be the only time anyone's ever asked them that. The commit to continuing to build behaviors and enlist them in the process, too, in building trust, because it is. It's a multiway street, a multi-level highway system. Talk about what you as a team will do when trust inevitably breaks. So this can be a really powerful conversation. Great for retreats, great for team meetings. You can have people reflect beforehand, bring ideas and thoughts into the meeting. All good. And congratulations. You made it.

We have now talked about managing up, managing across. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. You're always welcome to email me. We also have a cross-functional collaboration guide. If you are interested in remembering this information, you can download that. We'll share the I have a link to where that is. Choosetheperk. Com, crossfunctional collaboration guide. It will also be in the thank you e-mail, too.

So if you don't get it here, you'll get it in a follow-up.

Yes. I would challenge you all to consider one thing you would like to take away from today and how you will put it into action in the next month. All right. What questions? I know we went through a whole lot of information. We have the next 10 minutes or so. People are welcome to hang out. Yes. Is it Creole? Creole. It's Creole. Creole. Yeah. Thanks, Jess.

I was thinking about...

I read at some point during the pandemic or shortly after the pandemic about how trust is really built in person. So many of us see our coworkers online Now, and I guess I'm just curious, what do you know about that? Do you know some statistics around trust being built more in person and face-to-face versus online? How do you recommend working around and working within this hybrid virtual world that so many of us work in now? I love this question. I don't have any statistics off the top of my head, but what I do know is that it is still very possible to build build trust when you are remote from folks. We know that there is something psychological about being together with people. Of course, different people have different social life batteries as well. Organizations often will be very mindful about how they bring people together and when they do that. Maybe that's an annual all-team staff meeting. Maybe it's a at the end of the year. A couple of my recommendations are, communication is still key. I actually have a blog post with some of these that I can share. If you're interested, you can send me a note.

Creating a way that we communicate and rituals for your teams, too. Even if you're not able to be in person, build in times where you can have real conversations. An example that we do at the Perk sometimes, even though a lot of us are here in the Madison area, we might just do our one-to-one on the phone and take individual walks around the neighborhood. It's a chance to connect and talk about things that are on top of mind. It's a little less structured in that way, but it gives us a chance to move our bodies and be together. There is also a really great book called Rituals for Virtual Teams, I believe, that has some good ideas for... They might seem goofy, but beyond just a virtual coffee chat, sometimes you can do that, too. But ways for people to tag in, or maybe you have a What is it? Flat Stanley. Maybe you send each other things in the mail. There are a lot of creative ways that you can do to get together. Yeah, that's a wonderful question.

Jess, can I add something in there, too. Yes, I love that question, and I am also a believer that you can build trust just as well virtually. I think you make a really good point of, Creel, when you say the research is showing these things, that's a really good way to then definitely have the conversation as a team. Hey, this research is coming out that's showing that it's really hard to build trust virtually. I think we should have an intentional conversation about this. What are the things that build our trust in this virtual environment? What are the things that break our trust? One other thing is research is coming out that's showing... It was in Adam Grant's new book that showed that tone is actually the most important communication cue for us. While we thought it was seeing people's faces on a Zoom meeting, it's actually coming down to tone. Sending videos back and forth in the virtual world, in the Async world, sending voice memos, getting on a phone call so you can actually hear the other person's tone is really We often talk about Oprah at the end of her long running talk show that she had for decades, did a last interview and she said, I've done over 30,000 interviews with people, and they all had one thing in common, which is everyone craves to be seen, heard, and did what I say matter to you.

There are a lot of ways to build that connection, even if you can't be in the same room with each other. Great question. What else is coming up for folks? Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you? A legend. Jess, I have a quick comment and something that I heard one time in my career that really stuck with me is I was always raised and my mom would tell me, The golden rule is treat other people how you want to be treated. I think about when managing up and also managing across, there's almost a platinum rule, which is treat people how they want to be treated. Heck, yes. Yes. A lot of what the assessments and behavioral styles like Disk are trying to prepare us with is to understand or empathize what is that way. Yeah, I love that, the platinum rule. That's great. Thank you, Jonathan. What other things are exciting? What do you want to use or do differently? Or just spend time absorbing? I can say that I'm definitely going to have a Disk Discovery session with the team where we all identify our different styles.

I think that'll really help our communication and collaboration. That's exciting. Well, wonderful. Well, if If you have any other questions, if you would like a link to the blog that I mentioned, I will also have that available. You can also find that at Choose the Perk. We've got a resources section in the blog that talks about hybrid culture. Thank you so much for your collaboration and ideas. I'm excited to see you all. Have a wonderful week.

Thanks, Jess. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Thank you.

Thank you, Jess. Thank you, Jess.