The New Manager Playbook is here: what’s inside and who it’s for

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Welcome back to the show. Oh my gosh it is. Here it is launch day for The New Manager Playbook. Those of you watching the video, I am waving around the book. I really wish I had one of those party streamers things for birthday parties. I used to say Happy New Year because I am that freakin excited for this to be out in the world. So this was a book I put together because I struggled so much as a new manager and coaching other managers.

When I worked in big tech, I saw so many other folks struggling, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like we didn’t have any time, not knowing what to delegate or feeling like I have all these pressures against you, your own team, your managers, your stakeholders, your clients, the executives, all of these things. And you’re like, how am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to get through the day, let alone help motivate a team? Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where you get a masterclass in managing your team with ease in 15 minutes or less.

I’m Lia Garvin, your host and team operations consultant for this show am I programs with small businesses and corporate teams. I condense a decade of experience driving team operations in some of the most influential companies in tech into strategies to save you time money. Most of all, stress doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner who realize that running a team isn’t as easy as you thought it would be. Are a new manager learning the ropes, or are a seasoned manager ready to up their game?

Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple. From conflicts to feedback to delegating and more. We leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing. Kind of hate it and everything in between. Let’s go. And so as I was coaching and training and talking to manager after manager over the last few years, every single one said, hey, what resource do you have for new managers? What can I give managers to show them that they don’t have to figure this out alone, that there is hope and there’s so much good stuff out there.

And I felt like, hey, I want to put all this together. The stuff I learned along the way, the mistakes I made, the lessons I learned, the tools that I have found into this resource. And that’s why I could not be more excited to share with you today, because if you are feeling overwhelmed, if you are feeling like you don’t have time, if you’re struggling to navigate stuff like managing people that are older than you or have more experienced or former friends or peers, or having hard conversations, all of the stuff.

That, of course, is hard because we’re dealing with people and you don’t want to have to muscle through it at the expense of your team, then this book is your answer. This book is going to give you the tools. Share stories. Like I said, talk about the times I got it wrong and what I learned from it. Examples folks have shared with me, lessons along the way. All of this so that you feel like, okay, I got this.

The goal of this book is to help you go from overwhelmed to confident to leading with ease. And I think sometimes we get resources and there’s so it’s like someone looking back from decades later in their career where they have so much distance from the day to day that when we read it, we’re like, yeah, I think that those are good concepts, but they’re really related to me. Or sometimes content around managing or leading. It’s very academic or theoretical and it’s like, yes, I love it conceptually, but like, what do I do right now?

My team member, I just gave them feedback and they just roll their eyes like, how do I follow up with that conversation? This is your guide because I’m all about practical strategies. I’m all about the brass tacks. Okay? I think because it’s coming from team operations and program management. Like you got to have an action plan otherwise. Like, what the hell are you doing? Right? You have to have actions coming out of meetings. Otherwise you shouldn’t even have been a meeting.

No. So this book is literally your action item. All the worksheets and exercises they have throughout are the things to do to get better at it, because managing teams doesn’t get better. Like just because you will it to. It gets better because you did something, you practiced it. And the thing is, while this is the playbook for new managers, the new manager playbooks, it really can be for a manager at any stage. Because anytime there’s a new situation, like a lot of us might have been managing for a while remotely with hybrid, and now a lot of us are facing return to office or we haven’t managed folks that were older than us in the past, or we are managing folks, you know, across different time zones and things get more difficult, right?

So new situations also really is an opportunity to reinvigorate, to like check back on what tools we have in our toolbox and really kind of sharpen those tools. To use this metaphor, too many times. But, you know, when I think about the hardest times that I face as a manager, it’s all stuff that shows up in the book. So I’m going to say what those were, and then you can kind of get the specifics in the book.

If you were, you know, managing peers or former friends, that’s by far one of the hardest. And that’s what I have heard in all the manager workshops that I do. And when folks reach out to me for support, that’s one of the most challenging ones. And I think for new managers, that’s often when we become a manager. We were a person on the team, we were peers with folks, and now we’re leading them. And this situation not set up well is going to be one of the toughest situations because you’re going to be facing people like yesterday we were friends.

Now you’re like, tell me what to do. Like what the hell? And that’s hard. And I didn’t handle that that great the first time around. And I talk about that and what I went wrong and what I did differently. And I want to really impart that on you, because this is one of the things that I know. When I was in that situation, I went to my manager and said, I don’t want to do this anymore.

I hate being a manager. I never want to do it again. I take me over and she said, you know, no, I, I, you can get through this. You got to deal with this. And I’m so grateful to her for helping me, you know, push through it and in like, really not letting me out for in that case, even though I was really, really frustrated because I learned the lessons that I can now share with you.

And now and if I’m in that situation again, like I’m hiring folks that I knew already, getting a role in a situation where I knew someone from the past, maybe bringing on a friend in my company, whatever it looks like, I won’t make those mistakes again, and I don’t have to figure out at the expense of that team member. So managing former peers is managing for rent. That’s one of the stickier ones. I also hear folks always count struggles with not feeling like they have enough time.

That is another thing that I really excited that this book is going to help you with this feeling like I am running from the time I wake up, when I look at my phone and I know I should have my notifications off, but I wake up, I hear the 11 look at my phone. I feel like punch in the stomach. I am met with dread of all the stuff I have to do, and those messages just keep coming and the requests keep coming in and being pulled in different directions, on and on and on and on until the time I go to bed.

That feeling that you can never come up for air, that how am I supposed to even develop my team and manage my team when I don’t even have five seconds to talk to them? Working through that, looking at where what is really the cause of not having time, where are things that you can let go of? How does delegating come into the mix? Where are we not trusting ourselves? These are all things that I talk about in the book, because these are the things that you, my listeners, have shared with me and you, my attendees in my workshops, my programs have said that you’ve been struggling with and we’ve worked on together.

And so that’s why I’m so excited to be sharing those more people, because these are the things that we have finally gotten some relief from. And on the other side of that, and the other side of managing a former friend and being like, never again, I hate this was managing some of the people that were that changed me and develop me as a leader that I am now, that were game changing, were the best people I ever managed that that I learned so much from and was able to help elevate in their careers so much.

People that told me I was the best manager they ever had. After the time, the person before that, I felt like I was really the worst manager. People that instill confidence in me as a leader help me scale, and I could do the same for them. On the other side of every challenging situation is such a huge opportunity. And I maybe that sounds cliche, but it’s true. But we only can see that if we work through it and we can only work through it, you know, at a reasonable pace.

If we get support. And so, so many managers start as managers, right? The top two reasons we become managers is tenure in our roles. So we’ve been in a company for a long time and past success. We were crushing it in that role. But so many of us go into that without support because we were really a high performer. People assume we should know how to lead, but that has nothing to do with it actually being a high performer in like a specific thing and being a leader are completely different skills.

We have to learn those. And so to be a great manager, and I know you want to be a great manager because you’re listening to this and you’re and you’re getting the book to be a great manager. We actually have to do something about it. And when we feel stuck and we feel like we don’t have any time, it gives. You’re like, well, how am I supposed to read one page of a book? I can’t even eat lunch away from my desk.

Like, when am I going to do this? It’s worth it. And honestly, like most of the books worksheets, no, not really, but like this is an easy read and super quick because I wanted to make it so practical and so relatable and it does have a lot of worksheets in there. So there are blank pages and, it’s it’s just I’m so excited for you to not feel that way anymore for you to not feel like you don’t have no time for you, not feel like you’re drowning in all the work, not too far in the weeds that you really can grow and accelerate your career.

Because again, on the other side of that, not only is it elevating a team and leading folks and helping them reach their full potential, you were able to reach your full potential as a leader, because when you have some of that time back, some of that clarity, some of that like, you know, just brain energy, now you just say, okay, where do I want to focus my time? How can I be more strategic? And that is where the floodgates open to all the potential.

All right. So pick up your copy today. The new manager playbook is available. Check it out on Amazon. Head to my website. Read about it. Learn about it. Listen to the Inside the Manager’s Playbook episode that I’ve done leading up to this, and please share with me. Send me an email [email protected] once you’ve picked it up, once you’ve checked it out of what exercises you were trying and what you think of it, I cannot wait to hear from you.

And if you have bought a copy, please take two minutes to leave a review. It is so helpful in spreading the word and getting the new manager playbook into more hands and more managers so we can help together transform the workplace. Because as you know, I’m on a mission to make manager your team the easiest part of your job. And the more people that have this tool, the easier management becomes. The more people benefit from having better managers.

And really, we all win. So thank you so much in advance for your support for picking up a copy of the book for leave a Review. And again, I cannot wait to hear how you find the book. See you next time. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.

With that said, let’s spread the word. If you love this episode, please pass it along to someone who might benefit from it. See you next time.