Management Café

Yes, this is Tim and Pilar's last episode, so we talk about moving on and the importance of wrapping things up.  Interview with Andy Gotts photographer that Pilar mentions: https://youtu.be/G0CF6FKR1qk?si=xLp_OSTjvcAlXULj Find out more about Pilar and Bree's book on loneliness in remote teams: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/coming-soon

In this episode, hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about the dangers of being a perfectionist when managing a team, and why it's different to being a perfectionist individual contributor.  (And you'll hear for yourself how neither Tim nor Pilar are perfectionists...)

Hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti have a good chat about the nature of loyalty, who we should be loyal to at work and what happens when we get the balance wrong. 

Have an excellent start to 2025 - from Tim and Pilar.  www.managementcafepodcast.com  

Who knew that talking about pessimism could be so much fun... even if most of the laughter is self-deprecating. In today's episode, hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about what happens when we let our "inner pessimist" come through.  For more information, visit www.managementcafepodcast.com  

The new series on Manager Mindsets starts with a discussion of comparison. Comparison is unavoidable, especially in the age of social media. It can feed difficult and unpleasant emotions like doubt, jealousy and imposter syndrome. Indeed, someone once said "Comparison is the thief of joy". And if we aren't careful comparison can even tempt us into mindlessly copying others, which takes us away fro...

As co-hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti wrap up the Manager Emotions series, they explain why they're moving onto mindset, and how this is different from cognitivie tendencies (and why they might well be mixing the two up!). Plus, some feedback on our episode on Emotional Contagion, and Pilar shares an episode from Workplace Geeks where one of her connections talks about living with long-covid and...

Our hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about the many times they've been confused, the difficulties in feeling the emotion as individual and manager, and what happens when a team member becomes confused. 

For the sixth episode of our series on manager emotions, Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about Compassion.  Good leaders don't just remove obstacles and show their people the way forward. People also need to know that their leaders will support them in the hard times. And importantly, they need leaders to demonstrate compassion when they are in difficulty. This is distinct from sympathy - where th...

Welcome to the fifth episode of our series on manager emotions, where hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about Pride.  We want to see good work, both in ourselves as managers and also in the teams that we lead. Pride creates a virtuous cycle that rewards and encourages healthy achievement. Do a good thing -> share this achievement with others -> receive recognition -> feel proud -> do more good...

For the fourth episode of our series on manager emotions we talk about Emotional Contagion, as it's something that keeps coming up. Emotional Contagion describes how one person's emotions can induce similar emotions in others. This is often happening at an unconscious level, for example, we mimic someone's facial expression and start to feel the same emotion. Managers should be especially mindful...

Many thanks to Catherine Nicholson from Virtual Training Team for sharing her thoughts on emotions at work and anger, after listening to the first episode of the manager emotions series.  We share her comments directly from her LinkedIn posts, and expand on them.  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pilarorti_we-kick-off-our-series-on-management-emotions-activity-7211065541115953152-75df If you have an...

We continue with our Manager Emotions series.  So much of our work culture is about productivity. Traits like productivity, positivity, drive and a strong work ethic are idolised. We are often expected to overcome obstacles through pure hard work or "grit". This doesn't leave much space for hopelessness! Hopelessness is a difficult emotion for us to experience directly or be exposed to. It's a dra...

We continue with our Manager Emotions series. Today's episode is all about joy. We remind ourselves of what it feels like, but we also wonder whether it's always ok to express it. Join Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti for coffee - or tea!   In our last coffee we talked about how anger can signal that something is wrong. Joy, on the other hand, signals that something is very right and motivates us to cel...

This marks the first of our series on manager emotions, where we discuss some of feelings we experience at work. Anger is one of the more complex emotions for a manager to navigate. Anger is about a perceived wrong and our desire to find a resolution. On the one hand, anger can be energising and act as a powerful catalyst for change. It shows us, and others, what is important to us. But when expre...

Join our hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti. Most of us are familiar with avoiding a task that we should be doing. But is there more to it? On the one hand we worry that procrastination leads us to being totally unproductive. But is being hyper-efficient realistic? Don't we sometimes need to break the cycle of busywork? Procrastination might actually be telling us something important about the task...

A theme we keep coming back to in the Management Café is the importance of context. In each situation there are many variables that influence what happens. For example the company culture, our manager, our team, the particular task and our own capability. Sometimes we have to accept that the current context is not good one for us and we're not going to perform at our best. This can be hard to reco...

Step into the Management Café with your hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti.  This conversation was inspired by an article Pilar read in Organizational Dynamics : " How managers can help employees navigate tough decisions without burning out by Andrew Molinsky and Laura Noval. They describe a specific type of burnout, that which arises from having to continuously perform challenging tasks. This is di...

A short bonus episode to let you know what's brewing in the Management Café. In about a month, we'll be starting a new series, on manager emotions. In each episode, we'll dive into a specific emotion, discussing what it feels like, its purpose, and how it can help or hinder us as managers. Our recent episode on regret resonated with listeners, and we both enjoyed it very much! It highlighted the i...

Our hosts in the Management Café believe that everyone has the potential to be better at something. And for them, as for many of us, helping someone grow is one of the most rewarding aspects of being a manager. Similarly for employees it's a wonderful feeling to have a manager who believes in us, gives us opportunities to improve and offers their support. However it's important for managers to rec...

Several times recently in the Management Café our hosts have talked about regrets. Those formative management experiences where they look back and wish they had acted differently. Making mistakes is part of our learning journey but some situations weigh on us more than others. Revisiting them can bring a range of challenging emotions like regret, guilt and shame. Regret is an uncomfortable feeling...

Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/   Let's face it, management has a mixed reputation. It seems like everyone has a story to tell about their manager doing something poorly. But when we break it down, often times it's that we've had a bad experience with a manager. That person might actually be an ok manager overall or even a good manager. But in this...

Tim and Pilar discuss an article featured in the Jan/Feb 2024 edition of the Harvard Business Review: " Leading in the Flow of Work " by Hitendra Wadhwa, Founder of the Mentora Institute. Hitendra posits that "rather than (being) a trait to be acquired, leadership is a state to be activated" through preparation, self awareness and reflection. By managing our internal state and matching our actions...

In 2024 Generative AI is still an a rapidly emerging technology. We know it's going to impact lots of jobs and work behaviour. But it's not yet apparent how that impact will be felt. There is a big difference between ChatGPT helping you with a task (e.g. summarising your notes or drafting a communication) vs using it to entirely perform the task (e.g. using AI generated output without editing). Ma...

Following on from coffee #71 about the impact of technology on our leadership practice, Pilar and Tim talk about emoji as a communications tool for managers. Tiny and ubiquitous, it's easy to underestimate their importance. But when used skilfully, emoji give us a visual language that can provide faster and more concise communication. Within the context of our teams and companies this communal lan...