Giving Thanks in 2023

I'm taking some time this week to reflect and give thanks for what you have all done to make The Bosshole® Chronicles such a success!  We've been at this for three years now and our fourth year will offer up even more stories and input from thought leaders from the "people development" space.  We are making a positive impact and you'll hear about some of that too!  Blessings to you all this Thanksgiving!

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Transcript

John: 0:02

A very happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends out there in the Bosshole Transformation Nation. I can't even believe it is November of 2023 and this is the Tuesday right before our Thanksgiving holiday, and I'm gonna take a little bit of a different approach in today's episode and make this about our thanks for all of you out there. We're going to look back on not just the last year, but even the last three years of the Bosshole Chronicles, and I'd like to share with you some listener feedback for which we are incredibly thankful and also set the stage for things to come. So let's dig in. The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. Hey everybody, it's good to have you with us.

John: 1:09

This is a kind of a quieter week at Real Good Ventures. We're trying to reflect and embrace all of the things for which we are incredibly thankful, and I would like to express, on behalf of Sara, Karen, all the folks that you've met from Real Good Ventures through the Bosshole Chronicles podcast. We are so thankful for you. We are incredibly blessed that you have been listening to us. You have elevated the Bosshole Chronicles into the top 25% of all podcasts that are out there. In three years, and actually at the end of last week, was the official third anniversary of the Bosshole Chronicles podcast, and I just want to give you a little bit of perspective on what's happened in the last three years since we started the podcast, really as a forum in which we can talk about all of the challenges that we face when it comes to getting into management, being a supervisor drifting into the Bosshole Zone and always, always trying to take an affirming and positive approach at how do we help keep managers out of the Bosshole Zone and give them the tools that are going to help them be successful. And, of course, part of that includes the Bosshole stories, and we've heard a ton of them. But we also want to make sure that we're acknowledging the good managers out there. For all of you that are listening in.

John: 2:35

One of the things that we would ask you to do and we've been doing this, we've been talking about this for the last month or so is, while we do talk about the significant impact that Bossholes can have on people and on teams and organizations. This would be a great time since it's the week of Thanksgiving 2023, to reach out to your manager and supervisor who is not a Bosshole, those of us that have great managers, great supervisors that really do understand what it means to develop other people and work with and coach other people. Make sure you reach out to them this week and thank them, whether it's a note, a phone call, stopping by their office if you all work in the same place and just say, "hey, listen, I want to let you know how much I appreciate the work you do, because right now and we've talked about this at length managers are suffering. I mean there is a. I mean you may be thinking, gosh, I'm the one that's suffering, I'm the one that has to deal with a Bosshole, but at the same time, statistics show that managers, especially middle managers, are experiencing burnout, unlike they have in the years past, and I realize that it's cyclical. I mean there's always an ebb and flow of effectiveness and strain and engagement and disengagement in the workplace, but the fact remains that for far too long, we have put people in management and supervisory roles that may not want to be there, may not be equipped to be there. Maybe we again. It happens all the time. It happened to me. You know you're a great individual contributor and all of a sudden it's like, hey, let's put you in a supervisory role with other people, but we don't equip you to do that and so that becomes a flaw in the system. You know, when we talk about the creation of Bossholes is systemic and it really is. We've been doing this time and time again and I mean again. You can go back and look at several episodes over the last three years to understand the necessity for changing the way we think about who should be put into management and how we prepare them for management and what is the disposition to be an effective developer of other people, and that's what a manager should be. But when you think about those managers that are doing a great job, that are really stepping up, and they've stepped into that role to do a great job and develop their people, please make sure you're reaching out to them, especially this week, and just thank them. You would be astonished. Just that simple acknowledgement, that thank you, will do wonders for their just, their perspective, their esteem, their understanding that gosh management.

John: 5:15

Getting into management is tough and there aren't a lot of immediate rewards. There's a lot of challenge associated with it. I didn't know what I was doing when I got into management and fortunately I sought out mentors and coaches and I worked for my share of Boss holes, trust me. And again, this is where we have the opportunity to understand what is the true nature of a manager. What is the manager of today need to be? And actually this is true, historically successful managers are developers of other people. They understand how to coach and cultivate and develop people beyond where they are right now. And that doesn't mean changing who they are. It means helping them to understand and curate a better version of who they are or am a more refined version of who they are and elevate their capabilities. And you know what? It's okay not to want to go into management. So this is where we've talked about that wide pathway for individual contributors and the more narrow pathway for managers.

John: 6:22

So that's a long way of saying please make sure you take the time to thank your managers, your non-B ossholes out there, because they really could use it. I know that they would appreciate it. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, just the acknowledgement of the work that they're doing and you're aware of it, the sacrifices that are being made on your behalf. I think that that's very powerful. So do that. And, by the way, just a just a call out to everybody out there, in the closing portion of our podcast we always talk about if you have a Boss hole story, please feel free to share it with us, and our email is my story@ the boss hole chronicles. com.

John: 7:01

So it's just my story@the Boss hole chronicles. com. And I would encourage all of you that this doesn't mean you have to come on to the program and actually appear as a guest anonymously, and we never use any real names. But if you have a story a Bosshole story or a non-B oss hole story, a story about a manager that you have or that you had in the past there was absolutely amazing send it to us, email that to us and share that story with us, and we will actually share it on the program without any names. Again, we want to protect either, you know, in Boss hole situations and non-B oss hole situations we want to protect those individuals, but at least let's share those stories so that others can learn from them, because that is what this is all about.

John: 7:52

When we started this, when I started The Boss hole Chronicles three years ago and in Sara, my amazing partner, my business partner and co- host of the program, when this whole thing launched it was, we didn't quite know where it was going to go, but we knew that we wanted to create a forum in which people could have these conversations. We can bring in subject matter experts, we can talk about the work that we do with our clients and the successes we have In helping managers just elevate to a higher purpose and a higher calling and break free from some of those old models and and the old mental maps that constrain us from being effective developers of other people. And in those three years, let me just share this with you, in the three years that we started the Boss hole Chronicles, we have had over twenty six thousand downloads of the podcast itself, mostly here in the US, a lot in the UK and actually different parts of the of the world, which is pretty amazing to me. And the only way we really promote it is, of course, word of mouth. You are out there telling people and referring people to it, which we we we appreciate incredibly, but we usually post every Tuesday when a new episode drops. We post that on LinkedIn and so people are talking about it, they're sharing their responding and the just the sheer lift that you have created out there in the boss hole transformation nation has elevated the boss hole chronicles into, as I said before, the top twenty five percent of podcasts available in the world. The universe of podcasts that is so humbling to me and and again, I appreciate it because there's a lot of work that goes into this. It's just something that that was homegrown, that we started to do, but you've made quite a difference and again we're very thankful for that. We've published a hundred- this this episode actually is our one hundred and sixtieth episode, and we started this year to include transcripts with our episodes, which is new. Again, we're learning more and more about how to be better at this. We don't have any sponsors yet. Well, the only sponsor is our own consultancy Real Good Ventures, and you've probably heard of the heard about that but by and large, this is again just a place where we can have these conversations.

John: 10:20

So, couple of things, share your stories, thank your managers and, by the way, for those of you that are suffering under a Boss hole right now. I just want to point to an episode that we published a few weeks ago, where Karen and I co-hosted it about you know, is it a Boss hole or a tormentor? We talked about tormentors and Karen has just a remarkable perspective on what we would refer to as tormentors, but a new way of looking at it, a new way of thinking about it and saying that in every tormentor, inside that tormentor is a teacher or a mentor. So you may not want to actually thank a bosshole for whom you're working right now, but don't dismiss that idea, because you can learn something even from the bad managers. We always say never waste a good opportunity to learn from a bad boss, and there are plenty of ways to be able to do that. So thank your managers, thank your non-Bossholes out there and let them know how much you appreciate them. For those of you that may be working for a Bosshole or a tormentor, just reflect on what you're learning and how you are growing from this difficult situation, and there is always light at the end of the tunnel. And then, of course, thank you all for your listening, your referrals and letting people know about it. So please follow the Bosshole Chronicles. Share the Bosshole Chronicles with people and let them know what's going on.

John: 11:50

I also want to take some time here to acknowledge some of the feedback, listener feedback that we get, and I have been speaking at quite a few conferences and actually the topic, the theme that has resonated the most with audiences has been reinventing the manager lessons from the Bossholes. So we've essentially taken these three years of lessons and what we've been gleaning from not only the stories but our subject matter experts and our own work personally with our clients from Real Good Ventures. But we have been putting this together and sharing that with audiences across the country at different conferences, many different kinds of conferences, as a matter of fact, but invariably I have been, and I know Sara will attest to this as well, people will come out to come up to us at a conference, at a trade show or something of that nature, or even within our own clients, and say, "hey, I just want to tell you how much I enjoy the podcast, and these are these are unsolicited comments and they are so welcome, as a matter of fact, when somebody would come up and say, hey, that one with Tasha Eurich was amazing, or I listened to the one with Mike McFall, or you and Sara were talking about the plight of the plight of the middle manager. All of this feedback has been so welcomed and so appreciated and at the same time, I want to share a couple of things with you direct. I mean. These are written comments coming back to us from listeners, one of which was was so heartwarming and so affirming. I'm going to share that with you. But I'm going to share something else with you. I'm going to share.

John: 13:31

We have a, we have an opportunity. In our show notes, there's always an area where you can take the our, our behavioral assessment and get your reference profile, because we talk about that a lot how it's impossible to really be a good manager or supervisor without objective data. That's all we use at Real Good Ventures with our clients. And, by the way, a shout out to our clients, you will never know how much we appreciate you and the, what an honor it is to work with your organizations. I just wanted to make sure that you heard that, for those of you that are listening in, we have a link in our show notes for providing listener feedback and we'll get questions in there. Actually, we had a listener not too long ago say, "hey, can you provide a transcript beyond the show notes? Can you provide a transcript? Well, we figured out a way to do that and now all of our shows moving forward we'll have a transcript so you can actually look at the text of the commentary or the conversation that takes place during the episode.

John: 14:32

But back in August of this year and we received a response in our listener feedback through our listener feedback link, and I wanted to share this with you because, while the overwhelming response to the Bosshole Chronicles has been positive favorable we are just so pleased that it is resonating with so many people we got a comment back that was pretty negative and I wanted to share this with you because there is such wonderful information within this person's response and I'm betting this person is not a regular listener. Based on this response, I'm pretty sure they're not, but I wanted to read this because I'll bet when they submitted it they thought, "oh, they're never going to read this out, they're never going to share this, which is wrong. I mean, we value the feedback because that's what makes us better at what we do and, as a talent, optimization, consultancy at Real Good Ventures, the only way we get good is by all of the feedback we get from our clients and how we refine our work and deliver value to our clients. But I'm going to share this with you because there is so much in this feedback that I really wanted to share it with you, and then I got another one I'm going to share with you, but here it is. So here is the feedback from back in August of this year.

John: 15:51

"I was forced to listen to this and it was as horrible as I anticipated, or worse. The word you have invented to describe bad bosses is incredibly offensive and makes it impossible for me to take any of this seriously. In fact, it comes across as thoroughly hypocritical and weaving. The self-promotion and advertising throughout this recording reinforced that you've found a nice moneymaker to satisfy the insufferable rantings of entitled employees and the poor managers trying to make the best of an impossible modern situation. The thing in my work life that makes me fume and foment is having to endure yet another flavor of the month consultant to tell adults how to behave. So that was the comment we got back in August.

John: 16:41

I am so appreciative for this individual to share that because I think it reveals and as you listen to it it reveals what this individual is going through. So my sense and of course they don't leave an open name or an email and that's fine. That's fine my sense is that this person is in a management or supervisory role. But let's unpack this a little bit. I don't disagree with that last comment and during another flavor of the month consultant to tell adults how to behave. I agree with that.

John: 17:11

There are and I'm a consultant, we are a consultancy. There are a ton of consultants out there who, I would say, struggle to deliver value to their clients and that's what makes it feel like the flavor of the month that people are constantly. You know, organizations are constantly cycling through these consultants and different voices that are coming in to tell adults how to behave. That's one thing we would never do. Our mission is not to tell you how to behave. Our mission is to help people find meaning and fulfillment in their work. We just happen to do it through objective and validated science and analytics.

John: 17:47

But there is a point there. I think we do ourselves a disservice in organizations where we're always trying to find the new thing and we keep shifting and we don't find any purchase or foundation. You know we have clients that I mean when they start to use our data. That's one of the reasons that we became a certified partner of the Predictive Index, because it is so solid, the data is so robust and it creates such a firm foundation on which all other things can be built. That way, you know, people aren't trying well, this tool and then that tool, and then we're going to shift over here because nobody can really get a sense of the direction and how I can use this in a sustainable, long-term way. So for this individual, I think you are articulating what a lot of organizations and individual contributors or even managers and organizations experience, because it doesn't feel like we're landing on anything that really works and when we do find something, we change it. Then maybe it's it, just it feels like it is uncertain and there is no foundation.

John: 18:51

The one thing that really stood out for me is this person was forced to listen to the podcast and again the commentary about finding the name offensive. I mean the word Bosshole. I mean it certainly gets people's attention and you know what it means right away. We're pretty pleased that we were able to trademark that word, but when it talks about the idea of entitled employees and the poor managers trying to make the best of an impossible modern situation. I think there's some real lessons from that, and let's talk about the poor managers trying to make the best of an impossible situation. I just said you know, right now, managers, middle managers are experiencing the highest degree of burnout that we've seen in a long time, and middle managers and managers and supervisors have always been the brunt of issues within an organization because they're such a critical catalyst for success and also potential failure. So when this individual talks about managers trying to make the best of an impossible modern situation, this is really reflected in a lot of the episodes that we've had on the Bosshole Chronicles, how organizations almost shove managers into the Bosshole Zone because they give them way too many direct reports, they don't provide training and they don't equip the managers to be supervisors and understand what it takes to develop other people. Managers are doing this without objective data, they don't have self-awareness and they don't have awareness of the people around them. That absolutely creates a really difficult situation. I don't know how modern it is, but I would say that the pressure that has been put on managers and supervisors to create results, yet without sufficient self-awareness, awareness of others, objective data, training or even considering whether or not this person wants to be in a management role. I totally agree with that.

John: 20:50

Now, the entitled employee's comment I really took that more as kind of a personal feeling of, maybe, what this individual is experiencing, that they just that they're faced with a really difficult situation and their impression of their employees is that they're entitled. Well, my recommendation if I could sit down with this individual and thank them for their input, I would actually ask them what their experience has been as a manager. It seems like it's been pretty difficult. It seems like it's been almost intolerable, and so, rather than forcing somebody to listen to a podcast and try to fix them, I guess the bigger question is should this person even be in a management or supervisory role? Has this person been equipped and prepared to deal with this, or did they give this individual way too many direct reports?

John: 21:45

There's so many ways to look at this, but again, I wanted to share this with the Bosshole Transformation Nation just to acknowledge that there are people in management roles right now that are suffering, that perhaps shouldn't be there or are feeling lost and feel that in some way, calling out their Bosshole nature, if you will, is unfair. And again, you may be absolutely right, but here's my, here's my encouragement to this individual and anybody else that feels the same way, is that our podcast is not meant to offend or belittle anybody in this circumstance. It's really built to cast light on a situation that is very serious in our organizations and if we don't fix it, if we don't help to remedy these elements that drive managers into the Bosshole Zone and we create these impossible situations, we're going to find it very difficult to to engage people, to retain people and to get them to optimize their performance, because we don't have them in the right roles and we haven't and we haven't provided the kind of leadership management supervision that's going to develop them and that has to be the number one responsibility of a manager. So, once again, thank you to our our friend out there. I'm sorry that you're going through such a difficult situation and I do hope that in the new year that it improves. That being said, I would say that we are very fortunate that that is, in three years, the only negative type of feedback we've ever received.

John: 23:27

I want to share with you something else that was shared. This is through an email from a listener, and this is most of what we hear, and this is the type of stuff for which we are very thankful. So let me read to you this other one. "I hope this message finds you well and in good health. I'm reaching out to share how truly helpful your podcast, the Bosshole Chronicles, has been.

John: 23:51

I'm having a bit of a challenge acclimating to my new role in a totally new industry. Literally every day is a winding road. As a seasoned HR professional, I feel like I'm starting all over, getting pushed back at every effort and just feeling defeated. I've been searching for a resource, someone, something, anyone to understand what I'm dealing with during this career transition. Each of the episodes I've listened to has provided education, inspiration, practical tools I can implement for better results, as well as a sense of community. I'm so glad I tuned in. The content is confirmation and gives me a sense of confidence to continue moving forward.

John: 24:34

Thank you for your work and helpful information. The guests are super knowledgeable, relatable and the entire podcast feels really genuine." Thank you. And so I would just say thank you to this individual for that wonderful commentary about the podcast. That's why we do this, and I mean again, I would say for the one that wasn't so positive. That's also why we do this, because if we're getting managers and supervisors thinking differently about their role and perhaps reflecting on man.

John: 25:09

This really made me angry that I had to listen to this podcast and I'm offended by this and at the same time, is this an opportunity for some really deep reflection. Maybe I need this, maybe I am living in the Boss hole Zone right now and there's an opportunity for me to shift my role as a manager, as a supervisor, as a developer of other people, and take a new perspective. And I would say to you absolutely, any of you that are challenged with this right now there is absolutely a better way to step into and live out that manager role. I know that I had to go through it. Most managers do. I would just hope that the second response that we got from one of our listeners is more in line with what you're experiencing with the Boss hole Zone.

John: 25:57

So, as we wrap this up and thanks very much for listening to this little divergence from a typical episode simply because it is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, it is most definitely a time of reflection and that's what I wanted to make this. We are so appreciative of all of you out there. Keep up the great work, keep sharing more about the Boss hole Chronicles with people around you. Don't hesitate to email in your stories, Boss hole stories and non-B oss hole stories as well. We'd love to share them with the rest of the Boss hole transformation nation. I'm just hopeful that this is a week also of reflection for you and truly embracing and immersing yourself in just the glow of Thanksgiving and what it represents, with family and friends, and with that we'll see you next time on the Bossh ole Chronicles. We'd like to thank our guests today on the Boss Hole Chronicles and if you have a Bossh ole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechroniclescom. Once again, mystory@thebossholechroniclescom. We'll see you again soon.