The first time manager. Pt.3

Welcome, and thank you for tuning into the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. I'm your

host Ralph Owens along with Terry Beller. In today's episode, we'll cover topics such as what it means to redefine competition, why controlling your anger impacts your ability to influence others, and managing people versus managing projects. Enjoy the show.

So I'd love to like redefine what it means to be competitive in the workplace. Anyone who knows me knows that I just, I love sport. And so, of the things that sports have taught me is how to operate inside of a team. And so mainly because the sport that I played, like basketball, that's the kind of sport that, there is some individual, it is individual in a sense, but the organic nature of basketball dictates that there's just a built in collaboration, right? The fact that you have to share the ball, the fact that you have to move and rotate.

Well, the sport that I loved wasn't like that, it's baseball. It's probably next to golf, in terms of a sport, maybe tennis, baseball is really an individual contributor sport that you do your single job, all nine of you and then collectively you get a win. But I'm really not depending on anyone to hit the ball for me. Not depending on anyone to field it for me. So you're all by yourself.

Well, in that, what I learned in terms of competition and the best way that I've taken that experience and brought it to work, I'll use the example of running wind sprints, right? We've all ran wind sprints and we've all been in this scenario before where if you don't run this whatever, this 100 yard wind sprint in under a minute, whatever it's supposed to be or thirty seconds, then the team's gonna have to run again, right? I like to use that analogy because competition is undoubtedly there's always the guy in the back. So the competition is the guy who's always in the front, hey, let me go back and get the guy in the back and say, hey, unless we do this together. So the competition is let the unit move forward.

Me as if I run and I get to the end of the finish line and then there's still 10 guys that don't make it, none of us win because you know what? We're all running again. Don't be the guy that's fussing at the dude who didn't make time. You could have had to make time.

That's right.

So competition is that if you see an area lacking, hey, pull a person aside, spend some time with them. Hey, you know what? Unless we do this together, we all are gone The team at large is gonna be impacted. So that's how I like to leverage competition. The competition is can we move us all forward?

Not just for you to get the accolades.

That's right, that's beautiful. Redefining what the competition is. It's not competition to be the smartest guy in the room anymore. Right? And something Terry you and I have said many times is another version of competition is competition with the best version of yourself.

Yes. Did you show up and give the best version of yourself? Right? Did you did you show up and give the best version of yourself? Right?

Or did you come short on that? I heard a leadership talk about a young gymnast and whenever she would, dismount and she would stand up, the first thing she would do is look up at her score. Now people thought that she was looking at other people's score when really what they found out is that she was she knew what her best time was and she was always trying to beat her I'm I'm sorry, her best score was and she was always trying to beat her best score. So every time she got on the match, she was in competition with the best version of herself. So are you showing up to the game and given the best version of yourself?

And that becomes another level of competition, healthy competition that you can, engage in on a day to day basis. Right? Because we always have room to grow and to become better. But I love that man. I love that.

One other point they have in the book, let's see. Speaking or acting in anger. Reacting from anger will only cause others to shut down and respond in fear. No one can make you angry. You can choose not to be angry or at least learn to bite your tongue.

Again, moving back to the dynamic of you may be an individual contributor and we've all seen this right? You have an individual contributor who has not the greatest attitude in the world, but they deliver results so the company keeps them. Right? Because of their results and their performance. But when you become a manager and you have to deal with people, you can't just mouth off the people like you may have when you were just their regular coworker.

Right? Your position gives more meaning to the things that you say. So you have to approach things differently. I mean, are your thoughts on that Terri?

At the end of the day man, look the most successful people are those whose networks support them at the end of the day. And so I'm really glad that we're having this topic, because I'm talking to my wife again, she's listening to our shows and she brought up something Ralph, I'm like, oh man, we really need to, I mean, challenged me. I love the concept and the idea and this is what she said. I was like, wow, I really wanna I gotta talk to Ralph about this, this is good. She said, you lead people but you manage projects.

Yeah, that's good.

Most time we're thinking we're managing people. You're really, as I'm thinking about that I'm

like, yeah, that's real

good. So in practicality, right? I mean, think about it, your most successful times at managing, I would probably, I feel like my most successful managerial moments were in either crisis kind of situations or like projects. Because I really start running what she said through my filter of experiences. And then when I think about my most successful times with individuals, I feel like, yeah, that was a leadership moment.

And I think that's really something man that we should really dig into and really maybe develop some practical exercises around, hey, if you're gonna be really great and successful at outcomes and people, we may need to redefine how you see them and what they mean to you. Because here's what happens, when you look at managing people, it really objectifies them.

That is good, that's good. Sister Baylor says, that's a good one, that made the cut.

I've been chewing on that because when I start thinking about my most intimate relationships, my friends, my family, some of my coworkers, yeah, I don't manage them. I don't have them on a board and I'm moving, hey, you know what, two steps up and one to the right.

That's right.

I'll do that with a project, I'll do that with a sick crit situation, right? Or crit sit situation. But we don't handle people in that manner.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna hit you with something to expound on that. And I've heard this said this way, which I thought was really good. It says that, we was talking about the difference between leaders and managers. He said that a manager's role and responsibility is to keep resources within a certain constraint to produce a specific outcome.

Right? So we we we gonna I'm gonna manage this team so that they don't get any lower than x productivity rating or they let's just say we're making widgets on the on the on the assembly line. We gotta get 10 done an hour. So my job is to manage that that group of resources to make sure they produce that 10 an hour. That's what a manager is.

A leader is taking, those same resources and figuring out a way to go into unchartered waters and to do things that have never happened before. Right? A leader is is is getting you to believe that you can do more than what you think you can do. So a leader will say, yeah, we know that the minimum is 10, but I think we can do 15 if we do it like this. What are you gonna bring to the table?

What are you gonna bring to the table? Okay. We're a team. We're about to go get this. A leader is gonna take you outside of those constraints.

A manager is just gonna hit you to the status quo only. Right, and never take you any further than that. So, but I love the way that she put it though, because you're right, you typically don't manage people, you manage projects or, you know, more tangible things like that, But there is a such thing as management from the perspective of, okay, we got these little resources here and we only wanna produce this one thing. It's all I want you to do. Just keep them right there.

That's what management is. Leading is we're gonna recreate the way we even do this. Right? We're gonna innovate. We're gonna take this thing to a whole another level.

And getting people to believe in a vision that you've cast for them to get them to do more than what they thought that they can even do in the beginning. That's leadership.

Yes. Yeah. That's good. That's real good. Thank you

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