Episode 20 - Tom Manning - Hard Conversation, Create Growth

Creating real culture is about having an open honest environment that allows managers and employees to communicate with trust. Tom Manning the founder of The Pathway Academy through his own experience and growth created an amazing training and coaching program for businesses to learn how to break down walls and create better environments for people to work in and communicated in. This is one amazing conversation with an amazing person driven by a true desire to help.

 

Leighann Lovely  00:19

If you are an HR professional, business owner or at the operations level trying to understand what people want. You may be struggling, our systems have been shocked practices have been questioned, and culture is the leading conversation. Let's learn how culture is created, sustained, and why it should be the leading conversation when discussing hiring, training and retention. This is the foundation of any business and it's time to address it. So tune in to Let's Talk HR humanizing the conversation. We tackle topics that influencers of change need to understand and struggle to overcome every day, such as where to start, and what the new workforce wants, and how to attract and keep positive momentum going. I'm your host, Leighann. Lovely.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:06

This is going to be a great conversation today with Tom Manning. He is a specialist in emotional awareness and accountability. Tom is changing how managers and leaders approach accountability to get more consistent results in higher standards without anger, irritation, or avoidance.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:28

Tom, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to have you here.

 

Tom Manning  01:33

Thank you very much for having me Can't wait. It's gonna be fun.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:35

Yeah, so why don't you start out by telling me a little bit about yourself?

 

Tom Manning  01:39

Yeah, so my name is Tom Manning. And I sort of specialized in emotional awareness and accountability. And sort of got into that. We did a lot of business consulting for a long time. But, you know, went through a period of time. So read difficult relationships and stuff like that had to learn a lot about buying behaviors, and fear and insecurity and how that impacted my kids and my partner, and all that and how there's impacted me, and how you navigate all of that in a healthy way. We sort of started to a big part of that was taking personal responsibility. So how do I take responsibility for how I feel how I respond, how I process what's happening to me, how I react to an event. All these are my choices. And that's really where the accountability piece came from. As we started to more and more introduce what I sort of experienced my personal life into the workplace, we started to change how we approach accountability, so that we no longer need to avoid stuff, we don't need to rely on anger and irritation, we can deal with it in a different way, a more productive way. And an approach that just works a lot better to get more a more consistent approach. Yeah.

 

Leighann Lovely  02:52

I totally love that. Because I think the hardest thing for any of us to do is to actually sit down look in the mirror and realize, Wow, am I the problem? And then one day realize that oh, okay, my behavior actually is, could be part of the issue. And but, and you and I talked about this, you know, prior to this conversation, when you have children, it's the true reflection of you, right? Because there's no lying to yourself, you know, you look in the mirror, and you see what you want to see. But when you have a child, you can't lie, when they all of a sudden start to reflect your own behavior and do something that you're like, wait, oh, my God, why are they doing that you go. Because I do that. You can no longer hide from it. You know that? The eye rolls that, you know, my husband and I do sometimes to each other? My daughter does. And I'm like, Oh my God. I do that, like all you can no longer hide behind the I don't do that very often. Well, no. Nope. Absolutely. So I love that, you know, the accountability piece is something that people really struggle with of, okay, I have to take accountability for my own reaction to a situation or my own behavior in this situation, and realize that I'm actually impacting the people around me, and creating maybe more stress of the situation. And then it's not always the other people in the room. That's the problem.

 

Tom Manning  04:26

Yeah, you're right. And like kids are such a mirror, you know, they just mirror they just mirror back at you and the amount of times that we can be so I think parenting is just the height of hypocrisy because we've shouted our kids and say, don't you shout at me? Like hello, you know? So it's the height of hypocrisy. We can get away with some of that more, I think in the workplace, but yeah, as it Yeah, it just ends up being reflected back at you. And if you're willing to look at that then it can be actually a bit uncomfortable, I think in the beginning because you start to realize, like I've, I've actually had a much bigger impact on these behaviors than I originally thought. And now I've got to take responsibility for that. And that's sometimes tough.

 

Leighann Lovely  05:19

Sometimes tough.

 

Tom Manning  05:21

Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, it's tough. There's no.

 

Leighann Lovely  05:26

Yeah, yep. So let's talk a little bit more about your journey, you know, you touched upon it on a high level. So talk about your journey. You your your business is, you know, pathway Academy. So, right. So tell me a little bit more about how you developed and, you know, a little bit more into what pathway Academy is.

 

Tom Manning  05:48

Yeah. So I think it all started where, well, a lot of that started, when I first started introducing these principles in the workplace. And I was sort of figuring this all out, one of the early things I did with a client was created this career pathway. And we wanted to sort of give, like, from when when we take apprentices on, we wanted to kind of give them a clearer way or route through that was the idea of these kind of roles. And one thing early on, I tweaked is we've got to be really clear about what the expectations are, so that they kind of know what good looks like. And it's easier for us to hold them accountable to those things if we need to, which we will at some time. Because one thing when in my personal life, my coach used to say clear sooner in our relationships, he will always go on about clear as soon as clear as soon as so if in your you've got tension between you and your partner, clear a sooner have the conversation sooner about what is happening, so that you can address it and be truthful about it and be honest about it and deal with it, rather than it just fester and just be this toxic thing in your relationship. So I used to go on all the time about clear as soon as I was like, well, if if we're going to start with this career pathway, we need to be start with clarity. What's the clarity around this relationship, this is what we're expecting from you. And in return, this is what you can expect from us. So we aligned it with pay. So and they just loved this, like these guys love this. And what I loved the most one thing that we'll always remember is we briefed out to the to this tape actually, it was sort of like some subsequent teams. But in the in the sort of rollout of this is one guy stood up. And we were asking for some feedback. And he said, What I love about this is I can take more responsibility. So now I know what the next level looks like and what I've got to do, I can take more personal responsibility for that, you know, because I understand more about what the next step looks like for me, so I can take more responsibility to get there. So I was like, bam, like, that's just amazing, isn't it? That's exactly what we have to do. So you started there, and, you know, sort of evolved into well, how do we now help these people to grow? And part of that is having on it, were more honest conversations? How do we accelerate the rate at which we can take them through the pathway, part of that is helping them to see their behavior more having to see the downside more, but doing all of that in a constructive, healthy learning based environment? And how do we take the fear out of this role? And how to take the fear out the relationships? So yeah, that's sort of where it all developed from, and hence why it's called pathway Academy.

 

Leighann Lovely  08:34

You know, it's interesting, because so many people that I've talked to, you know, it's about transparency, it's about understanding, it's about knowing how you get from point A to point B to point C to point and so on, and so on. Right. And I think this is what everybody has wanted, for years, you know, my, my grandfather just went to work, he punched a clock, he did his job and he went home, he didn't care about what the managers were doing. He didn't care about what the business was doing. He didn't that was just bred into him, that you didn't get to see your peek behind the curtain. But the generations that are exist now they they've had a chance to peek behind the curtain and now that they have, they just want the curtain to be open. Right? Yeah. They want to fully understand what is happening at the business. What is happening in relationships, what is that's this new, this new generation this new. And it's not even just the generation. It's the new thing everybody wants to fully understand. I guess the whys the what's the who's the Where's right. Yeah, and we all seem to function better when we have clarity and what we want need are expected to do and I mean, it's, it's, I feel like people feel more empowered when they are able to take control of their own. I guess Destiny And if you give them clarity on how they are capable of doing that, they feel empowered.

 

Tom Manning  10:07

Yeah, 100% like, like people just like to know where they stand. And I think when we did this pathway thing, what was great is like I used to say, we put all the cards on the table. So like, we put all the put all our cards on the table, there's nothing, there's nothing hidden here, we've made it super transparent, super clear, you now know, like, these are the behaviors, these are the soft skills, this is experienced, this is what it looks like, this is how you need. This is what the next year, if you're operating at the level above where you are now, that's what this is what that looks like. And we've spent in the time taking the time to articulate that in words, you know, even like, are you doing this more consistently? Is it that you're doing it to a greater depth? Is it that you're bringing a broader level of experience that you're able to anticipate things earlier? Like, what is it that's different about this level versus that level? And then as they they're like, oh, okay, I get a now I'm starting to understand what that looks like. And I can take more responsibility for it. And, and it's easier to have those conversations about where the gaps are. Because it's like, look, you know, you're doing that, but you're not quite doing it consistently enough, or with enough depth or whatever. And it helps with those conversations around the gaps. And it feels more of more of the relationship feels more like we're in this together to help you get to the next step, rather than some kind of confrontational type thing.

 

Leighann Lovely  11:32

And it doesn't that just seem obvious, like it should, right? It should just be like an obvious thing. Like, your manager comes to you and says, Hey, I have to write you up. And you're like, Well, why? Well, just because you know, you weren't doing you weren't doing well in this. And it's like, well, you know, I've been here for two years, you would think that you you have a conversation with me before we get to the write up period. But there are companies out there that don't do that. They just all of a sudden you're like, Oh, I'm being written up. But for what how? It's seems like it should be an obvious thing. Like, here's your job description. Here's what your responsibilities are, here's how you should execute it. Here's how you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there are companies that don't do that. They're just like, No, here's your job, go do it. And if you don't do a good job in six months, they'll write you up. And you're like, Wait a second. I didn't even know that I was failing. Yeah, like, Yeah, well, we gave you the job description.

 

Tom Manning  12:34

It's funny, she said that you've made me you know, it just brings up a really great point. And I talked about one of the biggest mistakes around accountabilities is a lack of clarity around expectations. Now, one thing that went through my head when you said that is, we have so many unexpressed on verbalized expectations that I've given you just like say, you've joined the company, here's your job, spec, whatever, I have a load of expectations of how you're going to perform, how you're going to behave, how you're going to react, how you need meetings, and then but I don't express them, you know, somehow you're just meant to know this stuff, without me telling you. And then I get really disappointed because you don't give me the things that I didn't even ask for. I mean, how, you know, that's just ridiculous, you do that,

 

Leighann Lovely  13:17

Right. And this is the same in a marriage or a relationship, you start dating somebody and you're like, you have this idealistic idea of, you know, like, oh, this person is going to be, you know, they're gonna do this, this, this and this, and we're gonna be, you know, happy and we're gonna love each other. And then all of a sudden, you're like, I'm not happy. And then your partner goes, What do you mean? What, why? You never told me that you wanted me to buy you flowers, or that there was ever an expectation of, and some people are like, Well, I just assumed you would know that. Well, wait, wait a second. Some women don't like flowers. Some women like to be doubted. Same and I'm not just saying women, some men, some men prefer and I feel like we should be at a point in our in the world where you just have to simply say, Hey, honey, I would love it if occasionally you would go out and buy me flowers and chocolate strawberry covered strawberries. Like if that was all it was? How many relationships would not fail or take out the garbage? I don't know. I it shouldn't be just be a man's job. It should be a you know, split equally and couldn't relationships if if we were just all instead of being stuck in our head of like, this is what I think you should do and in and I'll keep it in my head. Just verbalize that in clarity.

 

Tom Manning  14:48

Yeah, it's such an expectations are such a massive part of relationships because disappointment is always preceded by an unmet expectation. So all that disappoint then turns into resentment turns into toxicity. And like, you know, it's just so unhelpful. And one of the things like in our house we have like that my coach used to say is ask clearly for what you want. So like, my kids will say, Oh, Daddy, I'm starving. And I say, Right. Are you sweetie? And she'll say, yeah, no, I'm really hungry. I would say, Okay. Say, Well, can I have something to eat? Yes, you can. Yeah. What do you want? Like, so I weren't, you know, unless they're making a statement, you're making a statement. And I'm being a bit pedantic about it. But I'm trying to, I'm being pedantic deliberate to teach them that asked clearly for what you want. Because what we do is we imply what we want, without actually asking for what we want. And then we get disappointed because they didn't give the thing we didn't ask for. So it's such a just,

 

Leighann Lovely  15:52

That is so real. Oh, my God, that is so brilliant. And I have this conversation constantly with my daughter, and then she's just, I'm really hungry, mommy, and I'm like, okay, great. Here's an apple. And then she's like, I don't want an apple. And I'm like, Oh, my God, and then it turns into this, like events. So from now on, I'm gonna go, okay, great. And then I'm gonna just sit there and stare at her.

 

Tom Manning  16:14

Yeah, to begin with, they just yeah, they're like, they're waiting for something. I'm just like, I just stay quiet, you know? And they're just like, Well, can I have something? What do you want? Well, can I have a chocolate bar? No, you can't have that. Could I have a packet of crisps? No, we can't have that either. Could I have an apple? Yes, you can have that.

 

Leighann Lovely  16:35

Right. Right. That, right? Because you Oh, my God, that's so brilliant. Geez, I just learned something.

 

Tom Manning  16:45

But it's crazy. You know, I had this lady ring up the other day, or she made an inquiry on my website, she works for somebody else. She was inquiring about some emotional awareness, training and stuff. And anyway, I end up having a call with her because we don't necessarily do one to one work like that at the minute. But I just got into this call with her. And she's just what she's describing is all this toxicity and confusion in these relationships in our workplace. And I sort of gave her some advice and guide her through how to approach that in a healthier way, how to get rid of some of that toxicity. Because, like, this just isn't commonly understood. You know, like, it's like, everything I teach is not, you know, it's not difficult. We're not like a common reaction we get when we do the accountability shows like guy so obvious when you say it. So and it is obvious, and it's not difficult. It's not always easy to practice, like to do to do it in the moment. It's not always easy, but it's not. It's not confusing. It's not difficult. It's very, like you said earlier on, it's like, this just seems so obvious when we say it. But it's not commonly understood or practice,

 

Leighann Lovely  17:49

Right? Right. Now, when you say it out loud, you go, Oh, God, this should just be but you're right. In the heat of the moment. When you're dealing in a situation, you know, you go back to a work situation, or you go back, and, and it's not that easy to remember, you know, not to get frustrated at somebody's, you know, behavior or somebody's, you know, an email that's being sent or, you know, again, and I go back to my personal situation at work, you know, I have a two employees or two partners that I work with on a regular basis. And they both sometimes send things to me differently. And I'm like, oh, man, I wish they could just send them to me the same. And then I have to remind myself, oh, did I tell them that I wanted it to be sent to me this way? Where I'm constantly just, I'm like, Oh, it's just easier for me to fix it. And eventually, then I'm, like, just getting irritating that I have to fix this every time.

 

Tom Manning  18:44

We deny them the opportunity to learn. Yeah, and we weren't clear in the first place. So yeah, the I like and I have a slide and accountability training. And so whenever you're disappointed, that's a flag. When you experience the disappointment as a flag, the first flag goes up is was I clear about what I was asking for? Did I provide an example? Have I trained them properly? Like, have we been clear about what good looks like clear about what the expectation is? That's the first place to look, but of course, when most people look first is them. Why aren't you doing this? How I want it? Right. That's the know, the first place to look is me. Was I clear about the expectation? Is the expectation clear?

 

Leighann Lovely  19:25

Yeah, yeah. And as a manager, it is. Absolutely. It's really easy to point a finger. And I think that's for a long time that has Well, I think it still is, it's still easier to blame somebody else than to look internally. And that's I think that's a knee jerk reaction that the majority of the population has.

 

Tom Manning  19:47

Yeah, and it's taking responsibility for that choice and taking responsibility for that reaction, taking responsibility for that request or whatever. So yeah, no, absolutely.

 

Leighann Lovely  19:59

Why can we through when you start to really work with with companies, and you teach businesses, really walk me through how you start that work, and you know what you really start with?

 

Tom Manning  20:14

So basically, we start with the basics. So we've got like some basic accountability training, which is all about, like, all we spoken about today a lot about your clarity of expectations, understanding behavior, why do people get defensive? Why do people lie? What all this kind of other stuff? So we start with all the basics we talk about, you know, how do we have a more candid, honest conversation with somebody while helping them to feel safe, and they just aren't skills that are practiced or understood very well. And what we do is provide them just with this whole load of suite of tools, like, if this doesn't work, you can try that. If that doesn't work, you can try this, if you might need to combine a number of these different tools to get that result. And we really like and tried to make it super practical. There's like a whole load of different tools. I'll give you an example. One is like, I talk about deliberate ambiguity. So you might say, oh, like, I'm not I'm not saying this is what you intended to do. But this is what I've observed, you know, is that what you intended to do? So you're just giving them room to make an excuse and talk it off. And that's fine. And you might have one more conversation like that. And then you might introduce concerns. So you might say, oh, like, I'm a bit concerned, because we had those conversations. But you know, I'd still notice this thing. So what it did is it gave them to time to see the behavior, it gave you time to establish a pattern. And once you've established a pattern, it's much easier to start turning up the volume and addressing with it, addressing it, but so often we just ignore it or don't deal with the behavior. So basically, we you know, cover the basics, all that kind of stuff, breaking down silos, how you create more united teams, so teams aren't working in different directions and pulling each other in different directions and blaming each other and all that kind of other stuff. So yeah, so we sort of trained like that. Start with that, sorry, and then supplement that with coaching. Because when they go and do this, they're going to make mistakes, they're going to, you know, avoid conversations, they're going to have a situation like, Oh, they're doing this, what do I do? So you know, just coaching them through then using those tools and applying it. And then sometimes there is also some kind of consultancy, for example, a bit like the pathway approach, well, how do we develop a leadership framework? That's, that's clear enough, you know, that we're clear enough about what good looks like and read quite a lot of practice at doing that really well now. So there is a bit of an art to it. So there might be some consulting, there's definitely, you know, to begin with some training round some basic training what good looks like and then really coaching people through that, as they apply it. So that's yeah,

 

Leighann Lovely  22:48

I'd say, so do you work with all the manager level? Or does this kind of trickle down into? Like, good question.

 

Tom Manning  22:57

Yeah, very good question. Yeah. So the accountability stuff that I just described, that is predominantly targeted at people, managers, it doesn't have to be some organizations want. Like, they'll have some people that are around a management team that don't necessarily directly managed, but they want to get them involved in it. So that's fine, but generally is targeted at people, managers, or leaders. But then we also do stuff with like a wider population of the team, where we help really to sort of desensitize to feedback, we help them to sort of see themselves a bit easier, a bit better, help them to understand other people's behavior a bit better. Help them to see that choices and how I react to something or have choices around how I react, do I want to get defensive this thing? Or do I want to do make a different choice? Or if so? And yeah, like we're, we're, we're often introducing methods by which we might have a more candid and honest relationship. So we can sort of supplement that with this with these types of sessions. So we can kind of prepare people for that, really, and help them to understand that it's not a bad thing. These are good. This is a good thing. It's a good conversation. It's a productive thing. We don't need to be afraid of it. And we can talk through lots of different ways in which people can start to process that in a healthier way and got some great quotes. People often say, one quote, the sixth, I had somebody this lady said, she said, it made me realize that it's okay to be wrong. You know, and I'm like, Yes. Like, that's amazing, isn't it? You know, she'll have been protecting yourself and you know, I can't be seen as being wrong and like now, it's okay for me to be wrong. Yes. Is it is what we're requiring of you is to just learn from any mistake that happens. It's okay for you to be wrong, and that's fine.

 

Leighann Lovely  24:47

Yeah, many leaders are afraid that you know, if they are if they are being designated as the person that's supposed to be able to have all of the answers all the time, and all of a sudden, you know, somebody finds out Oh, my Got you weren't, you weren't rites, you know, it's that oh my gosh, well, did I just feel my team? Many people when they when they're told or when they're not told when they are when they finally realize that they're not required to be perfect all the time? And that answer asking for help is okay. And when your company tells you that you go, Oh, I can stop putting this much pressure on myself and be human, like everybody else. Yes. Yes, that's, that's a big deal. It's a huge deal.

 

Tom Manning  25:35

It is a huge deal. Like, like, the so many of us, we spend most of our lives protecting ourselves. We don't want to feel the rejection or feel isolated, rejected, unwanted, we don't want to feel that. So we protect ourselves against that feeling, by defending ourselves or earning approval, you know, like, like, I was, you know, I needed praise and validation from people, that was one of the big things I need to heal around myself was needing praise and validation needs to earn that praise and validation, versus just being okay with the fact that somebody may not like you, or agree with you, or you don't, you know, all that. So, yeah, so we're protecting ourselves a lot of the time. And it's a big thing to put that protection down to put the sword down and the shield down, and be a bit more vulnerable and open and human. You know, that's a big step for some people. So and we've got to take them on that journey a bit written.

 

Leighann Lovely  26:37

And well. And when you finally do it, also, you also realize that you are more capable of learning new things, when you finally stop trying to know everything, right? Yeah. 100%, or I should say, pretend that you know, everything, rather has Yeah, right. So I have to assume that when you work with or when the company brings you in, they say I want you to work with not just the leaders, but more of the group that kind of falls underneath them. I would assume that that is a much more success story than it's when it's just with the leaders. I'm sure that when it's just with the leaders, there's a great success behind that. But I would, I would venture to say that when you're working with the entire group, that you're actually seeing that accountability, go all the way down through out and that there is just such a major impact that that really, truly has.

 

Tom Manning  27:37

Yeah, I mean, that, of course, from my point of view is absolutely optimal. You know, and it's depends on where the client is that but I think there's probably three things I would say like, like, what's the gold plated best solution is that there's there's senior leadership support for the approach, that there's good training of the management team, and that there's this, this wider support for for the wider group to help, you know, process all of this in a healthy way, like you're saying, and really kind of impact that wider group and help to show them what it looks like to have a healthier relationship with yourself and a healthy relationship with others. And we don't always know what that looks like, you know, we just If all you've known is a version of an unhealthy relationship, which lots of us, you know, that was where I was at. That's all you know, that's all you know, you know, sometimes you have to somebody who really does need to spell it out to you. And, you know, I know, on my own journey, I had lots of lightbulb moments, lots of moments when I was like, oh my god, I remember this, I remember my coach saying to me something like, you know, look, feedback is just information. It's almost like, you know, zero or one on a computer screen, you know, it's just information. But what we do is we make it about us, and we you know, make it personal. It's just information, somebody's opinion, is just their opinion, and it's information. I don't need to personalize it, necessarily, I can learn from it. I'm not saying it always feels like that. But at least knowing that's what it is helps me to then process it in a healthy way. So yeah, like it can be truly transformational. If if if the group goes on that journey together, because you're learning how to create a healthy relationships together as a group, and there's something very bonding around that. We teach people how to tell the truth about themselves. Look, I'm afraid, you know, or I'm nervous about this thing and I don't feel like I've got all the answers and I feel like I should know the answers. I don't know the answers and I less space for me to tell my truth and be a bit more vulnerable. And all that kind of other stuff. There isn't as much space for me to exhibit unhelpful behaviors over and over again and not learn from it, right, so we will hold you, we will hold you accountable to that. But if you do that, if you're willing to learn, if you're willing to self reflect, and you're willing to learn, there's a lot of room here, you know, there's a lot of room here. So it's very humanizing, despite being, at times very difficult, because you're really some people do not want to let go of their behaviors, right. And so, so at one end, it's like, you know, your feet to the fire, but at the same time, it's a highly humanizing environment. So and some people just aren't used to that. So it's quite a Yeah, it's like, you've got these two, what seem to be opposing things. But actually, they're not. It's a responsible, healthy relationship. And that's really what we're teaching them.

 

Leighann Lovely  30:49

Right? Well, and I guess, you know, people who are incapable of letting go of those behaviors, they may, they may still just have that. I guess, that old school mentality of I just want to simply walk into a job punch my clock, I don't want to know anything else. I I want to then leave and walk away and go home. And and that's it.

 

Tom Manning  31:17

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, though, I mean, the most where we've had where, where we've had where you have people who are exempt, maybe they're being evasive, they're not really taking responsibility for their choices, or they're not, they're just not being diligent enough in their work or something like that, and you've tried to address it, or you've or I can think of a number of them. But when there's a pattern of behavior that that we need to correct, it doesn't need correcting, but they just don't want to let go of that. They don't want to let go, they want to come they like the evasiveness because it gives them room to be irresponsible, and make up the rules and do what they want and stuff like that. Right? So the most common responses are, they voluntarily decide, Oh, this isn't the place for me anymore. They asked to step down. The least common response, oh, sorry, all they they change their behavior, you you keep the fire going until they go, they work out, you know, either change this behavior, or I may as well not be here, which is when they end up making the other choice. So the least common response is that you end up in some kind of performance, formal performance management. But if you do, by the time you get there using this approach, where you've got loads of evidence, because you really put the work in to make a difference, and to talk to about their behavior, and you put all that work in, and you were in there committed to making this better. So by the time you get to that point, you know, if you need to do any take any formal action, you've got plenty of evidence around what that looks like, and the work we did. So yeah, that's why we found that often they end up making sure that you're going to lead them to this choice, we don't get to control their choices, right? We're going to lead them to a point where they make a decision, am I going to change my behavior? Or I'm, Is this the place for me that's often or is this the role? For me? That's the question, they often end up asking themselves.

 

Leighann Lovely  33:17

And that's interesting that there are people out there that would choose simply just not to change and, and move on to find another role where they can continue those behaviors. But there, I mean, I know that there are people out there that exist that that just decide to stay stuck. And I guess that's the only I mean, the only word that I can come up with, they just they stay stuck in that same mentality of I want to go in, I don't want to mentally or you know, I'm not interested in growing beyond where I'm at. And they they're stuck in that. There's nothing wrong with me. It's everybody else. And that cycle just continues.

 

Tom Manning  34:05

Yeah. And there's a fairly large portion of people just sat in workplaces all around the world doing just that. People may have had to have may have tried to have a conversation with them. They may have tried to address it, but then they gave up. And because it didn't work. And that's really because and this is sort of like one of the other I talked about, or the other common mistakes around accountabilities there's no consequence. I can sit here and behave like this. And nothing really happens. Like nobody really there's no consequence to that. And without consequences. There's no accountability. And sort of the business end of this is we're going to apply a consequence. Like we will try we will be in this we will be with you we will we're we're fully committed to helping you get to where you need to get to, but ultimately if we have to, we will apply consequences also At least those consequences will lead you to a point where it's some kind of formal action. And we teach you the use of informal consequences that help us lead nicely to fall ones if you need to. But always the intention is to try and stop you and let you know the intention of each step is to stop us to stop moving forward, we don't want to move to the next step. But we are prepared to if we have to, and we have a method and a way of doing it. So so in this approach, you can't sit there and just be stuck, like and just go on your I'll just stay here and just be stuck. Because that suits me, you know, like, not gonna work here anymore.

 

Leighann Lovely  35:41

Right, yeah. And, and I've, you know, I think even on my podcasts that I've talked with people and referenced the, you know, where companies, they know, they have a, an individual, and they make excuses for that individuals behavior, like, oh, that's just so and so Oh, that's just, you know, Karen, or got across, I use that name. Oh, that's just Todd, he just acts like that. And you're like, wait, but that's not okay. Like, just because this individual has a crappy attitude, but they do a really, really good job at like, maybe something that's niche at the organization. It's not okay for that company to continue to make excuses for a poor attitude, or poor behavior or poor, something. But there are companies that continue to do that.

 

Tom Manning  36:37

Yep. undermines trust in the relationship.

 

Leighann Lovely  36:40

And it it, it tells that individual, that it's okay to act like that. It is okay to treat people crappy, it is okay to continue this behavior. And I personally, I think that they're, they're damaging that individual even more, because you're, you're taking away the opportunity, you know, especially if this is, you know, such where you're taking away the ability for that person to ever grow, not only personally, but in their career. If you just allow them to continue to behave in a negative way, well, they're never going to they're not going to get promoted, they're not going to grow personally. So yeah, you're if if a company just allows that you're taking away, you're taking.

 

Tom Manning  37:31

We do a total disservice, it's a total disservice. And you're right, I can think of this middle manager, middle to senior manager in it in a client of mine, who I did some work with little while ago. And I think that one massive light bulb was moment for her was I said, Look, we don't help them by not having this conversation. It's unhelpful. We are being unhelpful. By not having this conversation. I think this was a massive lightbulb moment for her. She was like, Oh, my God, like you could literally see in her face, almost like, I've got these people in my team who are behaving in a way that is unproductive. And sometimes that's only an aspect of their performance. Not all of it, but there's an aspect of their performance, that that isn't particularly helpful. And I've sort of tolerated it. And you know, to some degree, and I suddenly realize, I'm being really unhelpful, by tolerating that, and not addressing it and not having a conversation. And I'm only promoting a fear based relationship. The minute I avoid this, because it's more comfortable for me, then I'm afraid, and I'm not, you know, this is a fear based relationship. This is not a trust based relationship. If, if, if we trust each other, if I trust you, then pretty much you can say what you like, you know, right. So we want to move to a trust based relationship, like, you know, that's what we're trying to develop, not just wallow in a fear based one.

 

Leighann Lovely  39:03

Right? And if you have a middle manager who's who is affecting other people under that person, you're leaving a that is a risk at your organization or risk for losing people under her or him. You're I mean, that's not that's not you don't just have one employee problem. You have an employee problem with every single other person that that person touches. So if there's a bad apple right there, every every single other apple that is touched by that rotting Apple is at risk to start rotting.

 

Tom Manning  39:48

Yeah, and it affects other teams as well. I remember when I was in corporate, you know, we would have like another team and we're relying on this team and they're underperforming or then all those patterns of unhelpful behavior. I remember that one guy sticks in my head. He just wouldn't respond to staff he would he would respond really late, it was like it was so unhelpful. And this was something was really important needs to get fixed. And as the impacts, you know, the impact is huge. And, and imagine that when you when you roll up around a corporation when you've got 30, odd 40, odd 100,000 People 200,000 or whatever, you know, you you the compound impact of all of those Mr. conversations, and all of that poor accountability, and all of those behaviors that go and under duress, and all of a new compound that it massive.

 

Leighann Lovely  40:38

Right and here's the way like, okay, so you know, I have a team, I'm a team of three, like, right now I've got me I've gotten then I've got two other people, and we're expanding, we're going and we're fairly new, you know, we've came together, we've been together, not none an extremely long time. But when one of us goes on vacation, I just think of it this way, when one of us goes on vacation, it's horrific. It's like, oh, my gosh, I have to, you know, help manage this other person. So let's just imagine if you've got, you know, let's say we have a team of 10. And one person is just always not doing their job. Oh, my God. Like, that just wouldn't work. It just, it wouldn't work. Now, if you've got multiple teams relying on all of those other teams, and you've got one person who's just constantly never not doing their job. And then you think of what about a production floor? If you got somebody who's, you know, always behind on something you that that takes a mass? We're not just talking about a little that's a mass impact on a company. One. And I, I'm surprised that more companies don't get it.

 

Tom Manning  41:54

Like, yeah, and I think I mean, like, I do this taster session and what I asked them, first of all, I say, what is poor accountability look like? Can they say, oh, you know, miss deadlines, and all this kind of impacts of the business, and it impacts our ability to get stuff done if you got her up. Next slide. I say, do you expect your manager needs to hold their teams accountable? Yes, or no? And you vote? So of course, everybody votes? Yes. Like nobody says no to the question. Do expect your Haji. And then I say, Well, do you recognize any of these, you know, managing leaders avoid difficult conversation, particularly about behavior, monitoring managers and leaders allow people to coast? Well, yes, we recognize a lot of the symptoms. So it's like, do teach them naturally. Have you ever taught them how to do this properly? Not really. So we expect them to hold them accountable has a massive impact, poor, poor, poor, or Catholic has massive impacts for business? We expect them to do it, we don't train them how we're not we're unclear on what good looks like, like, all these skills are missing.

 

Leighann Lovely  42:52

And, you know, know, thestatistics on the amount of people. And I can't remember right now, but the amount of people who are who move into management roles, and that actually have management training, once they move into management role. The statistics on that are laughable. Yeah, people get promoted into manager roles with zero management training, zero, they get the, the, you know, like, this is how you do your job. This is the, you know, like day to day, what you're responsible for, if you need to run a budget, or you if you're running a department, here's your p&l, here's your this, but when it actually comes to oh, now you have three direct reports, or now you have five direct reports. Nobody actually sits down with them and says, Okay, so let's actually do the manager training. Let's actually talk about how you lead people that never actually takes place. They're just like, Okay, here's your new responsibilities. Yeah, nobody really says, Okay, so we're gonna go to this leadership training, you're gonna learn what it takes to be a healthy strong leader and manager of people. Like the statistics on that are like, only, I think it's like only like 15 or 20% of managers or leaders get some type of manager training. I mean, that's, that is laughable. It should it should be 100%

 

Tom Manning  44:25

Yeah, and the ridiculous thing is the crazy thing is that, like, some of the stuff that we teach is so easy to teach, like, you know, said earlier like, it's like, people come in here and say, Oh, like this is so obvious when you say no, no, it's our that deliberate ambiguity thing. I've got this like, like a micro learning course. It's like literally, it's like, you know, 10 swipes on your phone, you know, and his little video and it's like, you know, you spent 10 minutes on this, this is going to chat totally change, how your ability to address behavior where you need to in a productive and healthy way it's going to Transform your ability to do that, like in intense swipes of your phone, you know, this is like, it's not difficult to teach. It's just not being taught. Right. Yeah. So it's a bit of a Yeah, criminal sort of thing. But you know, it is what it is. And it gives me work.

 

Leighann Lovely  45:17

So that's awesome. I love it. I love it. And it's, it's what I most love about this is that it came from a personal development of your of your of you, you know, there was a time in your life where you went through a personal development and kind of went wow, this is this is something that other people could learn from. And I love that that's where the passion for what you do, I can clearly tell that you have passion for this. And that's what makes you I'm assuming so successful at it because you yourself, at one time went down the same journey that went down the same, you know, learning about this? Yeah, I'm trying to and I think at one point, we all kind of kind of step back and do that. We're like, again, looking in a mirror going oh, my gosh. But yeah, if you would, are open to sharing a little bit more about your, your personal journey. And again, I'm not asking, you know, details, but what whatever you're willing to share about that?

 

Tom Manning  46:32

Yeah, I have something. I have something I could say on that. I think one thing I was sort of reflecting on as you're saying that is a lot of like I some of the stuff we teach some of these tools, for me, was born out of an intensely difficult period in my life, like intensely that navigating some intensely difficult relationship issues that that were fairly horrendous, you know, and I had to learn how do I, how do I deal with this in a healthier way, and get a healthy result? And I made lots of mistakes in that process, by the way, right. But, but yeah, so I think that's where like my heart's in it. Because there's, there's my own sort of reluctant to say trauma, because that makes it sound that you know, that there's, there's, there's a lived experience here, right? That is meaningful and impactful that had a personal experience. So when I'm sharing this stuff, I know, I know that you do this, this will change your relationships, because it changed mine. This will change how you experience your life and your relationships. And it will reduce conflict and all this kind of stuff and help you to navigate this in a healthier way. I know that because it did it for me. So it's, you know, it's a lived experience. And I was lucky enough to have somebody who could navigate helped me navigate that at a time. And I remember him saying to me, he said this, at the start, he said to me, You're in so much fear, I could cut it with a knife. Right. So you know, like, I had to deal with this fear and this insecurity and this old pain. And then I had to go and deal with my relationships. And so yeah, so everything we put together, is born out of those experiences. And really, you know, when I when I really, in the early days, even before the pathway thing, it was like, Oh, how do I take this thing I'm talking about? How do I have healthier, emotionally healthier children? How do I have an emotionally healthy relationship? How do I how do I translate that into a workplace environment took me a long time to I just try I took years to translate the language I literally had to translate all this language I learned. And so I you know, now it's just rolls off. Oh, yeah. Well, it's accountability training. You know, it did I have to figure all that out. And along the way, or how we translate all its languaging so that it's meaningful, productive, useful. pragma, pragmatic, you know, like, we teach this, if you came along, you will be like, you think that this will always been like this? Yeah. So yeah, so I don't know. Yeah, that's, that's what I have to say.

 

Leighann Lovely  49:25

Well that's beautiful. That's absolutely beautiful. So we're coming to time, and I want to ask the question of the season. If you could go back to your younger self and give yourself advice, when would you go back? And what advice would you give yourself?

 

Tom Manning  49:40

So, I found this really hard this question, because I generally would struggle to know how to answer it, I think. I think the best answer I would say would be like relax, it will be okay. I think often I've been in a hurry to fix something to get something addressed and all that and and find the learning process difficult, you know, like, I want the learning process to just speed up. So I can get out this thing, you know, but But it's in the learning process. That was where the magic was. And I look back and I kind of think, you know, if I hadn't have gone through it, if I could whine back and say, Oh, no, don't go down there, go down here, well, then I'd missed the learning, you know, so and I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gone down there anyway. So I can't tell him not to do that. So I think it was more like, well, the best wisdom I can perhaps give him would be relaxed, it will all be okay.

 

Leighann Lovely  50:46

That's awesome. That's awesome. So if somebody wanted to reach out to learn more about you and learn more about pathway Academy, how would they go about doing that?

 

Tom Manning  50:56

So you can go on our website at the pathway Academy dot CO dot UK, we probably will come up with a.com site at some point, but right now, it's code at UK. I'm on LinkedIn, so easy to find Tom Manning on LinkedIn pathway Academy. You can email me Tom at Tom manning.co not.com or.co. UK dot CEO, email me. So yeah, just multiple ways you can get in touch login inquiry on the site, email me get in touch on LinkedIn, posting a lot all the time. So feel free to connect or whatever.

 

Leighann Lovely  51:31

So yeah, awesome. And that will also be in the show notes. So if anybody wants to reach out they can find that in the show notes as well. But Tom, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. It's been an awesome conversation.

 

Tom Manning  51:41

It has Thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed it.

 

Leighann Lovely  51:45

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

 

Tom Contact Information –

 

E-mail - tom@tommanning.co

 

Website – thepathwayacademy.co.uk

 

LinkedIN - linkedin.com/in/tommanning0

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, behavior, relationship, conversation, accountability, unhelpful, bit, manager, pathway, healthy, responsibility, teach, training, expectations, leaders, company, easy, clear, approach, work

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