Stuck in the Middle: Why Managers Burn Out

Welcome to another episode of A Job Done Well, where Jimmy and James dissect the brutal reality of middle management—a role where you’re accountable for everything and in control of nothing. This week, they expose the absurdity of being the corporate shock absorber: squeezed between bosses who demand miracles and teams who resent you for failing to deliver them.

From the horror of “Project Hessian” (a type of sacking) to the farce of forced rankings, Jimmy and James share their war stories: translating mass culls into PowerPoint-friendly language, faking operational maturity scores, and watching as outsourcing contracts backfire spectacularly. They reveal why middle managers burn out faster than a fuse in a power surge—thanks to emotional whiplash, powerlessness, and the relentless pressure to keep everyone happy (hint: it’s impossible).

But it’s not all despair. The duo offers hard-won, practical advice: push back with facts, stop owning every problem, and—when all else fails—go for a bloody walk. And to senior managers listening: remember where you came from, or risk creating a “frozen middle” so disillusioned they’ll start gaming the system just to survive.

Five Key Points:

• Senior managers: your frozen middle remembers your hypocrisy. Set them up for success, or prepare for mutiny.
• Middle management is corporate purgatory: all accountability, no authority.
• Emotional labour is the real killer—translating “sackings” into “strategic realignment” will age you prematurely.
• Remember the “umbrella” analogy: you need to shield your team, but they need to know it is raining.
• Honesty is your best weapon. Admit when you’re powerless—your team (and your sanity) will thank you.

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:08

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

James 0:20

What we talking about today?

Jimmy 0:22

Good afternoon, James. Today we are talking about being stuck in the middle. So middle management is where you are accountable for lots but in complete control of very little. Add a twitch. You've got pressure coming from above. You've got expectations from your team and it all lands on you, so you get stuck in the middle. Today we're talking about what it feels like to be stuck in the middle and what you can do about it.'cause often it can lead to burnout.

James 0:49

Yeah, and it's not just about work, I don't think. So you find yourself in that position where you're married and you've got kids and you've got a mortgage, and time is just running against you. I have a lot of sympathy for people in that position. I was there once, Anyway, then go on then. So tell me more.

Jimmy 1:05

Do you remember when you first felt caught between your team and your bosses and everyone was unhappy with you? Tell me about it

James 1:16

there've been several, several moments. I mean, the obvious one, and we've talked about this before, I remember working for Bob, Bob said, we're calling it Project Hessian. It's a KY of sacking, but we, we're doing one of these reorgs. And on the one hand, if you've got your bosses coming from the top

Jimmy 1:32

Yeah.

James 1:32

want you to get rid of the numbers, and on the other hand you've got these poor people working for you, you think you are Satan cabinet because you're sacking people and you're just stuck. You've got, you have. Nowhere to run. Everybody hates you yet either you haven't sack people quick enough, or you're sacking people too fast. You cannot win in a situation like that. And I suppose that is the almost the worst being stuck in the middle that you can get at. Although I've got others. Yeah.

Jimmy 1:57

I bet you have. I bet you have.

James 1:59

Should I give you another one?

Jimmy 2:00

Go on then.

James 2:02

Well, that's my pet peeve, isn't it? But forced rankings, right?

Jimmy 2:06

yeah. Yeah.

James 2:07

You get told you have to manage the message and you need to own the rankings. And you're sitting there thinking this is bollocks. And everybody below you is thinking this is bollocks. And how are you supposed to get outta that? One more on that later. But there's another stuck in the middle moment.

Jimmy 2:21

But it is true.'cause you get these tough messages from above cut costs hit a force ranking. Another good one that I experienced was close this site., And. People above you are doing it like it's a numbers game, but you see the wipes of people's eyes. You see the emotional impact of those decisions that your boss never sees. And, you you do care about those people I found it emotionally harder to be in middle management than I actually did at it. Being in senior management where you had the control,

James 2:52

Yeah.

Jimmy 2:53

It was easier.

James 2:54

And then the other one, it's not necessarily between your staff and your bosses, but you can also get caught between your bosses and your suppliers.

Jimmy 3:02

Yeah.

James 3:03

So an example I've got there is I had these outsource outsourcing contracts and the outsourcing contract on very simplest state was, it's, is volume minus 10%. We're gonna give you a 10% saving on volume each year. Right?

Jimmy 3:15

Yeah.

James 3:15

into the contract. It's a five year contract. You've got nowhere to go with this, right? Then some clam doubles the volume. Yeah. So they're processing a whole lot more. So they come back and say, yeah, okay, here you go. The cost is 180%.'cause they would, right.'cause it's on a piece of paper. You could do it on a spreadsheet. The maths is there and my boss just would not have this at all. Yeah. Why is it this? Why is it this? Why can't you do something? Why can't you?'cause it's in the bloody contract. You wrote your pill, but you just get stuck there. There's nothing you can do about it. Yeah. And people don't want to listen to you.

Jimmy 3:46

My outsourcing getting caught in the middle. Example, I was renegotiating a contract with a supplier that had been with this organization for over 10 years.

James 3:55

Yeah.

Jimmy 3:56

And we renegotiated the contract. We got them to halve the cost. So massive saving. Went back to the bosses in the organization I was with and we are the conquering heroes. Look what we've done. We've saved all this money, we've halved the costs. And everyone was really happy for a moment and they turned around and said, hang on a minute. If they can do that means they've been absolutely milking us for years. You need to go back to them and tell them we're not happy because they've halved their costs and they've been milk years. What are they gonna do about it?

James 4:27

You just can't win. You cannot win. But I mean, that is, I suppose, half of the, what does it mean to be a middle manager? You're this shock absorber in the

Jimmy 4:35

Yeah.

James 4:36

Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy 4:36

Yeah.

James 4:36

in many ways is the role you're sort of translating. You're translating the language of money, which is all the bosses were worried about, to the language of people and things, which is what the people at the bottom are worried about.

Jimmy 4:46

Yeah.

James 4:46

that sort of shock absorb, translator type of role.

Jimmy 4:49

Well, the people in my teens, people are generally interested in what's in it for me. And so when you're turning around and saying, we've got this big transformation, or we've got this restructure, or we've got this cost saving initiative, all the people at the bottom are thinking about what's in it for me? And you have to get good, like you say, translating strategy into something that means something to people. Another example for me would've been the fact that people at the frontline deal with customers, right? And they see the customer paying on a day-to-day basis. They really know what matters to customers and they care a lot about their customers'cause they're serving them every day. Whereas the bosses do the latest bit of automation project or cost saving project or process improvement or whatever it is, and it doesn't always help the customers. It quite often, computer says no, the process makes it more difficult and so you get caught between, we're going to outsource all of this work or we're going to automate all this work. And actually. That makes somebody's job harder, but it makes it harder for them to do a good job for their customers'cause they care about their customers. So that's I've seen that happen a lot of time. That tension between what's happening up here and what actually the frontline people are trying to do to serve and help their customers.

James 6:10

I mean the message here really is bosses are all wankers. However I can say that'cause the sun is streaming in and I've gone into deep shadow here. If you're looking at the video, I'm like England's most wanted, you can't see me.

Jimmy 6:21

You are going into the shadows and you're confessing that. I do think that I was probably guilty of some of those things as probably you were when we were senior people in organizations. But I think the point is, it's.

James 6:35

that high mate. I was always top of the shock absorber range I was.

Jimmy 6:39

You got high enough to be setting the direction. James, you're way, way too. It's way too modest. Anyhow, the what's one of my favorite sayings, James? Shit slides downwards. You created your amount of shit. Trust me.

James 6:52

So anyone listening to this who thought I created shit, feel free to disavow me of my opinion that I never did. So we've talked about that sort of sandwich moment, but why is

Jimmy 7:01

Yeah.

James 7:01

role feels so impossible then, do you think?

Jimmy 7:04

Well,. It's back to that, you end up being accountable for performance and delivery. And you're not really in control of all the factors, so there's lots of people in the organization who are influencing your ability to deliver. I also think that you end up, because you leading the people you know and back to your translator piece.

James 7:27

Yeah.

Jimmy 7:28

Bob can say to you, it's Project Hessian. It's a form of sacking. And that's very clever and witty. You can't go and tell that to your team, can you?

James 7:37

I put it on my PowerPoint

Jimmy 7:39

Yeah.

James 7:41

didn't go down very well.

Jimmy 7:43

Yeah, exactly. But you've got to translate,

James 7:45

you're absolutely right.

Jimmy 7:46

What your bosses are saying and what they're doing. Another good example when I was at at Lab Brooks and we used to decide whether people could have a bet, for various reasons or their credit or whether they, were going to accept the liability. But basically one of the bosses would turn around and they would say, with the person who's talking to the customer, there would say to me, turn the fuck off. That's what they would say. And I'd have to turn around to the person who was in the front line and say, can you explain to Mr. Law that unfortunately he doesn't have the credit available for this bet. When he makes a payment, we'll be able to take his bet in the future.

James 8:25

Yeah,

Jimmy 8:25

But that's, and that both those people were like literally there. So I think that you have to say the right thing. Often. You have to toe the line. You have to be, you end up being The voice of the company.

James 8:36

Yeah. Yeah. So bosses love to hold people accountable and we love accountability,

Jimmy 8:41

Yeah.

James 8:42

good at. Giving people the power to do the things that they

Jimmy 8:46

Yeah.

James 8:46

Yeah, because oh, I had a moment. Oh. I was running an OPEX program. I got lumbered with that and it's one of these run around the company making savings type programs and my boss was held bent on holding me accountable to make sure that we got 10% savings everywhere. Yeah. But so I've got the Chief operating officer saying, you must do this. You must do that. Right. I then go talk to the chief commercial officer. And as far as chief commercial officer was concerned, I could do one foot right off, excuse the terminology,

Jimmy 9:14

Yeah.

James 9:15

You're holding people accountable and they do not have the ability or the wherewithal or the decision making power to to do what you're being held accountable to. Is it any wonder people get stressed?

Jimmy 9:25

Well, we talk a lot, don't we, James? About the system that you work in influences your ability to do the work and actually if you think about a middle manager, the system that their team work in works in. How much of it do they actually control and influence? And actually the reality is it's a relatively small amount of that, but we're still accountable for the results.

James 9:49

Yeah, because another way of looking at it is. do when you're in one of these roles, you control the supply, right? So you're given a team of people, a supply of people, you've got control over that. But what you don't control is the demand. You're not in

Jimmy 10:03

No.

James 10:03

effort that's put on it. So I think I'm violently agreeing with you. It's that's the mismatch.

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Jimmy 10:39

So I think on one hand the job is, it's very challenging and at times it can feel near on impossible. But also I think the other thing at play is fundamentally, I think middle managers in an organization and when we talk about middle managers just clarify, that could be everyone from frontline first line managers up to just below the exec level. So anyone who is in that big portion of people, I think they are also underappreciated.

James 11:08

Oh yeah.

Jimmy 11:11

So I think the know the issue is, I don't think the difficulty of the role is always, always under understood. Don't think we always understand the value of good operational management. I think that we give them very limited support, whether that's resources at times, air cover at times even just like emotional support just to appreciating the ups and down. They have to like, you have to be the punch bag for everyone, but that's okay. Expect just to accept that.

James 11:42

Yeah. But it's the language that's used that demonstrates how underappreciated this sort of

Jimmy 11:47

Yeah. Gone.

James 11:48

So while you hear people talking about the mar pound layer in the

Jimmy 11:51

Yeah.

James 11:51

or you'll hear about people talking about the frozen middle.

Jimmy 11:54

Yeah. And those conversations like that was always senior people in an organization believing that people on the frontline doing the work were great, they were great, and everyone in the middle with the obstacles and blockers, and if they could just do their job of translating better, we'd all be all right.

James 12:15

Which is totally unfair. Mind you, I've also been called a management topo by people who work for me. You get it both ways. You can't win.

Jimmy 12:23

You do, and I think the, the appreciation from your team when you do get that, it always meant a lot to me. I certainly know that, at times your team might say to you, they'd appreciate the support you gave them, the backing you gave them, the advice you gave them, or the air cover you gave them. So back to that shit slides downwards. We used to stop that. We used to not share everything in its unvarnished truth to people. We, in, in my example, I didn't say to the person who was talking to the customer tend to fuck off. I gave her some coaching advice on how she could say it. Properly, constructively. But I didn't, but I didn't just lead. I didn't put the problem on, on, on her. And that's the thing is I think often you can be taken for granted by your team, but when you are not, it does really mean a lot to you.

James 13:14

So you're getting it both ways, right? But I have more sympathy the people who've given you grief from the shop floor, Because they're sitting there, they've got their nose against the ground stone. they're getting it day in, day out and they see this middle manager swanning around in their nice new company car, whatever the hell it is. Yeah. And when you're in that management role, you've got the time to make decisions. You which meetings to go in. I mean, you

Jimmy 13:38

Yeah.

James 13:39

flexibility, the people at the top who are giving the grief or presumably they were middle managers at some stage in their career, so you would think they would've some empathy and understanding of what it's like for these people. But they really seemed to.

Jimmy 13:53

Yeah, it's it quickly gets forgotten, doesn't it? What it was like, and I know I've worked in situations where when I work on boards of companies, I've realized that I was doing okay and I quite enjoyed it. But I also was very open to the fact that if I was in a more junior position in that same company, in that same situation, I wouldn't have survived. I couldn't have done that job, I could only work in that situation because I had seniority and control and accountability of things. Like I say it's a tough, it's a tough ask. So let's

James 14:27

It's like the monkeys in the tree, right? You, the management tree. When you're at the top of the tree, you're looking down, all you see is happy, smiling faces looking up. Whereas when you're in the bottom looking up, all you see is assholes profound.

Jimmy 14:39

Jane. Very good.

James 14:40

like,

Jimmy 14:42

But if you bear in mind the challenges of doing the role and the lack of appreciation doing the role, is it any wonder that statistically managers burn out more frequently than people who aren't in management roles?

James 14:56

And is that a made up fact or is there actually Support that then?

Jimmy 15:00

Yes, James. It's the CIPD survey. Did that. So having now accepted that it is a real thing about burnout let's have a quick discussion about the drivers of that burnout.

James 15:14

I think, well, the real driver for

Jimmy 15:16

Yeah.

James 15:17

was always emotional pressure.

Jimmy 15:20

Yeah.

James 15:20

So you've got translating people into numbers.

Jimmy 15:26

Yeah.

James 15:26

Yeah, well people aren't numbers. There's always a, as we said the other day, there's always an emotion behind the number. And how does that play out? So for example, yeah, situation I was in,

Jimmy 15:38

Yeah.

James 15:39

we had a working from home policy, right? Post COVID. And then of course they wanted to stop the working from home, right? So then they start to insist everybody comes back into the office, right? And if they're not prepared to come back into the office, well, we'll sack him, won't we? Oh, great. Right. Yeah. And I've got some poor bloke working for me who's got a severely disabled daughter.

Jimmy 16:01

Yeah.

James 16:02

way he's coming back into the office. Yeah. And now I've got to tell'em I can sack him. And do you know how that sort of, that, I think that's probably the most stressful element of, it's the emotional elements.

Jimmy 16:14

and I think you ca you carry all the emotion'cause you get the, the drive the emotion and the push coming downwards. You get the unhappiness and you see the real people. So you get that emotional load comes both ways onto you. I think there are a few other things. I think, back to that lack of control, the accountability without the authority Yeah.

James 16:36

Well, that's sort of feeling of powerlessness.

Jimmy 16:39

Yeah, it is. And nobody wants to feel powerless. But I think also there's the switching between, one minute you're having to talk about the kind of big strategic moves the organization's making. Then next minute you're having to argue about which day off someone's got the next week and can they have their holidays approved. So that switching is meant. The mental gymnastics you have to do is can be quite challenging. I mean, obviously people in this, these sorts of jobs do work hard, but I think the biggest cause of burnout, is the emotional side of things than just the simple number of hours that you work.

James 17:13

yeah. You don't reach for the gin and tonic off the back of ours. You, yeah. It's

Jimmy 17:17

No.

James 17:17

palace I mean, my amount knowledge would be, your boss keeps giving you more and more plates to spend. Absolutely refuses to invest in plastic plates. I mean, what the hell are you supposed to do? Something

Jimmy 17:27

Yeah.

James 17:27

to drop. Yeah, and just the inevitability of it. Just the dread, I suppose, is the issue.

Jimmy 17:33

And so I think there are some like structural reasons why burnout is high in managers, but I think there are some common traps that managers do themselves that I think also can cause you to. Struggle as well. So a couple of things I was thinking about is you do try and keep everyone happy. You know it sometimes it is absolutely impossible to keep everyone happy, but you're putting all this energy into saying the right things. Showing the right things to your bosses, saying the right things, to your team. It's just too much, the other point about, shit slides downwards is not. Pushing back upwards. So just doing everything your boss says,'cause you want to keep your boss happy so

James 18:16

Well you do, and the problem is the boss has got the power, but you get to

Jimmy 18:19

yeah.

James 18:20

defining moments. I had an issue once we were I was running an operation, we. I think it was a sensible thing to do. I mean, it sounds a bit dull, but we decided we were gonna put in place some sort of operational maturity matrix, right? So you can imagine, right? We've

Jimmy 18:33

You are right James. That does sound really dull.

James 18:35

So this was our, this is how we're gonna get this operation on track and you now all big dull, but gets the auditors off your pack.

Jimmy 18:42

Yeah.

James 18:42

So that's what we're doing and becomes part of my objectives, right? Got to get operational maturity to 87% of some switch products. Then of course, I dunno, I can't remember some system broke down or whatever it was, it really kicks off. I've got screaming customers, I've got piles a day. It's all hideous situation. And I turned to me boss, and he's banging on about this operational maturity matrix. And then this is not the big issue pal, right? Yeah. It is this

Jimmy 19:09

Yeah.

James 19:10

got going everywhere. We need to fix this fire over here. would not have it. He would not have this at all. Right? No. James, you've committed to doing this at the beginning of the year. You need to do this. Great. Now, the reality of what happened is I had this guy working for me, bless him. I will not mention his name, so protect his innocence. He was the man who was doing the score.

Jimmy 19:31

Yeah.

James 19:32

no doubt he was lying to me when he told me we got to the operational maturity measure score of 87%. Yeah, he was fiddling his spreadsheets. No one would

Jimmy 19:41

Yeah.

James 19:41

he was doing that. Right. I didn't challenge him'cause I didn't want to be accused of knowing he was lying. Yeah.

Jimmy 19:47

Fair enough. Yeah.

James 19:48

went on and told my boss that we did the bloody 87%. So you're get in this stupid situation where everybody looks foolish. Yeah. Everybody knows everybody's cheating. Yeah. Because you're not prepared to push back. And how, what does that do for morale and motivation?

Jimmy 20:03

I know, weren't you really motivated by getting 87% of operational? I mean, that is a story of Spurs accuracy, if ever there was one, isn't it?

James 20:12

That was gold mate. That was what that was.

Jimmy 20:15

I think another good example of one of the things that, that middle managers do that makes things worse is, we talked a couple of weeks ago about the umbrella analogy. You act in that, in those sorts of roles, you act as an umbrella protecting your team from everything. As a result, you can. A take too much on yourself, but B, your team often do need to know it's raining. They do need to know the reason it's pissing down and the reason they're not getting wet is because of you. And A, they don't appreciate you for doing that, and B, they don't understand the context they're working in. They need to see some of what's coming down the waves. So I think that umbrella analogy, that is, can be really unhelpful.

James 20:56

But there is an element of just facing into reality here.

Jimmy 20:59

Yeah.

James 21:00

honesty. And we just, we don't like the truth quite often. We'd much rather tell a story than facing to the truth, and that causes an awful lot of stress and problems.

Jimmy 21:08

Yeah and quite often you can then to your point about, the 87%, you can spend a lot of energy in trying to tell a good story. And you spend more time on manufacturing statistics and telling the story than you on actually delivering and delivering the improvement.

James 21:24

Absolutely.. No, but we know him. People who've done that. Yeah.

Jimmy 21:27

yeah.

James 21:28

just be

Jimmy 21:28

Yeah.

James 21:29

Not helpful.

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James 21:57

But a better question. What can you actually do to release some of the pressure?

Jimmy 22:03

There are a few good things that you can do, James. I think one of them is, how do you think about the role and how do you think about your position within that role? And it's moving from I'm here to make everyone happy to actually, I'm here to make things work. That's a very different thinking, that you can have. There's, there's definitely something about being clearer and managing what you're getting from your bosses. Pushing back with clarity and with some of the consequence and some of the logic of what's really going to happen. I think helps. Don't get overly emotional about it, just being very factual about it, negotiating what success looks like rather than just taking on the target. Go and save 10%. Yes, we could save percent. This is what will happen. This is the consequence of that. What would be a better answer is if we, it's that sort of negotiation. I think you can have upward

James 22:57

Yeah, I've got a couple as well though, I think there is something in honesty and just being particularly with your teams as well, but being very honest with your team, right?

Jimmy 23:06

Yeah.

James 23:06

have been asked to do this. I would be lying if I said I liked it, but we are going to do it.'cause my choice is either we do it, or I don't have a job, right? So we are going to do it. I'm terribly sorry. is how we are going to manage it. Just being very clear about it.'cause actually you can then be authentic and I think a lot of the stress comes from being inauthentic, not being yourself. So being very honest about the situation with your team always helps.

Jimmy 23:32

And I, I had a a really good boss at one point who would be clear about what the non-negotiables were. So just, like you say, we are gonna do this, so let's not waste a load of time and energy and effort debating it. This is a non-negotiable and, alright, you can't drop in non-negotiables every day. But, you can just say and you'd have had this, right. It's like the classic, we have to complete these online training modules to make sure we're all trained on whatever compliance department has set. People can raid against it and say, it doesn't make sense. It's this, that. Often in the organizations, they ain't gonna change nothing and it being clear, look, we ain't gonna debate this. We're just gonna complete it. It's less effort, less time, less pressure on you if you just get the team just to do it and just be clear. It's a non-negotiable.

James 24:24

Yeah. The other thing that I think, so I move on from that, but another one that's really powerful is just being very clear about what you are prepared to let slide.

Jimmy 24:34

Yeah.

James 24:34

So let me give you, it's almost like the opposite of you're non-negotiable. I worked, when I started off my career, I was there, worked in research and development, and we launched products in factories one day the factory managers just turned around and he said, we are not going to do any more research and development work in this factory for three months. And we were all up in arms about it, right? But his attitude was, well I'm really sorry guys. I've got a whole load. The supply and service issues. I need to fix those.'cause if we're not selling beef burgers, we're not getting paid. They need to take priority, we're gonna do that. And when we sorted that out, then we'll come and look at the r and d work. Now I didn't like it'cause I worked in r and d, but actually I got a lot of respect for the guy because Clear about what he was going to let slide. So I think there's another way you can deal with him.

Jimmy 25:17

yeah. But just that clarity of message as well, whether it's we are going to do this or we aren't just being really clear about things. I think another good example is just, try not to own everything. We take on board everything. We own every problem, every issue, whether it's a personal issue, a company issue, the teams issues, everything. Just'cause it comes across your desk doesn't mean you have to own everything.

James 25:44

And then the other one for me, and so we go back, this is a repeating message, create space, right? And how do you create space? We create space for one or two ways, right? You either get more people, well, good luck with that. That's not gonna happen. The other one is you get better systems. Well, they're not gonna invest in better systems. So the only option you've got if you're in those types of roles is to look at the systems you think, and what can I do to make this continuously better? What are the small things I can do? if you chip away at that stuff, you create yourself headspace.

Jimmy 26:16

I think something related to that as well is. Quite often as a middle manager, you think you are there to look after everyone else, and you do that before you look after yourself. And I think actually, making sure you are in a good state, physically, mentally, emotionally. Then you can look after others. It's like the, your favorite one about, the masks in an airplane. There's a reason why you put them on for, on yourself first, because you can't help other people, until you put yours on. It's the same thing, as a middle manager, look after yourself. Get yourself, in the best position you can, emotionally, mentally, physically, and then you can look after others. So make time and space for that.

James 26:56

Yeah. So going little law, the word of wisdom. Get out and go for a walk, right? Because

Jimmy 27:02

Yeah.

James 27:03

When you think the world's coming down around your ears, it's actually you've just got one too many things in your head and you just can't cope with it. Whereas you

Jimmy 27:09

Yeah.

James 27:10

stop and pause and go out for a walk. Give yourself time to chew things over. Then invariably the world looks better So how would we summarize all of that then?

Jimmy 27:18

So I think overall, James, I guess some of the key points are if being a middle manager feels tough, it's not just you, it's because it's the way the role is often designed.

James 27:29

Yeah, and there is an element of this is what you're getting paid for. Sorry to break it to you, And knowing that when you're in that position, don't beat yourself up about it. Now we've suggested a load of things you could do. My personal favorite actually. Just stop, get out, go for a walk down the sides of the canal or wherever it may be, and just clear your head a little bit. It works wonders.

Jimmy 27:49

I think my personal favorite was just managing the expectations of those people that you are working for. Be clearer with them about what you can and can't do.

James 27:58

And then finally, if you happen to be a senior manager listening to this, just have a little for the guys working for you, the old frozen middle. They remember where you came from?

Jimmy 28:07

Yeah. And are you really setting them up for success?

james_2_03-26-2026_153905 28:11

I think we put that to bed.

jimmy_2_03-26-2026_153906 28:12

very nicely. And Easter next week, so Easter eggs, but no episode from us next week.

james_2_03-26-2026_153905 28:18

'cause I'm not talking to you whilst meeting with chocolate. So I shall see you later on in April.

jimmy_2_03-26-2026_153906 28:23

Thanks everyone. We'll see you soon.

Speaker 28:24

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast

Speaker 2 28:27

from purpose to corporate jargon,

Speaker 28:29

but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well,

Speaker 2 28:33

easier said than done. So if you've got. Unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck.

Speaker 28:42

If your backlogs are outta control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised, just keeps failing to deliver,

Speaker 2 28:51

we can help. If you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organizations, get in touch at Jimmy at@jobdonewell.com orJames@jobdonewell.com.