F*ck Fear with Christine Spratley: Living Like a Head Bitch In Charge | How to Manage Up Without F*cking Up

Join Christine Spratley in this episode of Fuck Fear as she delves into the challenges and strategies of effective delegation and managing up in the business world, especially for women. Christine shares valuable insights from key books like 'If You Want It Done Right, You Don't Have To Do It Yourself' and 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,' emphasizing the importance of clarity, authority, and setting boundaries. Learn how to empower your team, reduce burnout, and enhance your influence without getting bogged down by egos or politics. This episode is packed with actionable steps and real-life examples to help you navigate both professional and personal relationships with confidence and efficiency.

00:00 Introduction and Morning Rituals
01:04 The Challenge of Delegation
06:24 Understanding the Cost of Doing Everything
07:24 Managing Relationships and Communication
09:02 Effective Delegation Techniques
19:42 Managing Up Without Politics
21:10 Managing Influence Without a Title
21:28 Shifting Focus: Managing Outcomes Over Egos
22:04 Effective Communication and Anticipation
22:37 Handling Micromanagement and Setting Boundaries
29:34 Proactive Leadership and Influence
32:03 Strategic Time Management and Prioritization
38:15 Building Trust and Elevating Interactions
39:38 Conclusion: Protecting Your Time and Energy

Creators and Guests

Host

Christine (HBIC) Spratley

Dynamic Public Speaker | Change Catalyst | Career Navigation Coach

What is F*ck Fear with Christine Spratley: Living Like a Head Bitch In Charge ?

This podcast is for anyone who wants to live like an HBIC—or lives with, works with, marries, dates, or is raising one. Let’s be real: being a Head Bitch in Charge is messy, bold, and unapologetically badass. This is not a guidebook—it’s a pantry.

My guests and I will share the ingredients that we use—what’s worked and what’s failed—as we say “fuck fear” and take action to live a fulfilled life. We cover real-life hacks and deep philosophical pillars to navigate the chaos of everyday life—where some days, my only accomplishment is having a bra on and my teeth brushed.

We’re tackling the daily shit women navigate, from workplace politics to relationships, raising kids, and building careers, all with humor, audacity, and zero filters.

So, tune in—tell your friends, and even your enemies. This isn’t about aging with grace—it’s about aging with mischief, audacity, and a damn good story to tell.

22 Fuck Fear
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[00:00:00]

Christine Spratley: Hello ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between you are listening to Fuck Fear with me, Christine Spratley, living like a Head bitch in charge and HBIC.

And we are going to have some fun today and we have fun every day on here, don't we, Joe? after we do our morning shots. Um, and no, that's not whiskey. Um, [00:01:00] it's but it feels like it burns going down what we, what we do. Um, anyway, today I am gonna talk a little bit about managing up, because I've been talking about business and some of the things in business that we go through as women.

One of the things that I. Have in my pantry that was given to me by Swati. she was a woman, a partner in EY, was a book called, if you want to do it right, you don't have to do it yourself. And I don't, I, I remember getting it and I remember going, you are right, you are right. Um, because I think for me, a lot of times I don't trust who I'm giving it to.

And as women, I, I shouldn't say, as women, I have noticed that a lot of my women friends in business and colleagues, we have a real hard time, , delegating because they're gonna screw it up. [00:02:00] Um, and we don't trust that they're gonna do it right. And then when they don't do it right, it ends up more on our plate.

And then we have more work to do. So we'll just do it ourselves. And what's funny is this book. Um, and there's another one, the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, which I actually use in tandem with it a lot when I was, um, at Deloitte and at ey. To manage, manage not just down, but manage up. And you can even use it in your relationships.

Um, the, the thoughts and the mentalities and the practices and the principles, kind of, of, of both books. Today we're gonna kind of go through and if you want to do it right, you don't have to do it yourself. Um, it is basically kind of like a six step delegation effective delegation. Then I kind of used, like I said, the subtle art of not giving him a fuck to kind of have the mindset to go into that delegation.

These are the six steps, but you have to [00:03:00] figure out how you want to implement them in your world. So the first one is, um, really try and understand and know why you're doing it yourself. Why, why the hell are we doing it? And typically. What? When I look around and I talk to women, especially when I coach them, I go, okay, what are you doing?

What are you taking responsibility for? We do it. I did it in my personal relationships and I did it at work. I. I was the doer, I was the get shit done, girl. I was, and I was doing these, I I said this in a, in a speech and it wasn't prepared. It was these soul sucking, mind numbing, non-promotional tasks. I'm doing 'em, whether it be taking notes, making edits, um, or organizing logistics.

'cause I, I can manage logistics really well. Um, but. The, the principle is, why am I doing this? And not just, [00:04:00] why? Because the other thing that I've realized for me is, is there, because I go to why, okay, well it needs to get done. Okay, well, all right, well, why should I be doing it? Is the question that I started asking myself, what am I getting in return?

Is this helping my team really? Or is it just filling a plug or am I, I'm taking responsibility for everything and my team's not learning? Is it helping me get promoted? Is it helping me understand? Is it giving me knowledge? So why am I doing it myself? And then the mindset from the subtle art of not giving a fuck behind kind of understanding this is not everything deserves my time, my attention and my anxiety.

Not everybody deserves access to my time, my attention, or my anxiety. And that is a different type of mentality for me to take, especially in the office, um, when I work there. So a question that I wanna ask you, 'cause y'all are our high [00:05:00] performers, why do you say yes to it? Okay. You wanna get it done right?

You wanna get it done your way, right? This is the thing, is, that's what right means to me, is I wanna get it done my way. If you're gonna do it right, you're gonna do it my way. Um, another thing is I, I often felt guilty for saying no, or an easier one for me. Was I, it was just easier not to say no. It was just easier.

It was just not, I didn't have to deal with the headache. I'll just do it. Um, and then also the don't trust others to follow through. Okay, but if I keep doing that, then one, no, they don't learn how to do it the right way. Okay. Two, I'm gonna feel guilty all the time and I'm not ever gonna learn to trust them.

And three, again, going towards the trust. [00:06:00] I'm not ever gonna teach them how to follow through. And the, the weird thing about doing everything all the time is that no one else Annie's up. I never give people the opportunity to ante up to do it, you know, and then to say, no, you need to try to do it again, or no, you know, I just don't give them the opportunity to perform.

So what's the cost? You know? What is the cost of doing everything ourselves? And I can tell you when I ask. The people that I coach this, because I've coached some men on this too. They, they take a big sigh. You know, it's like, what's your cost? You know what that cost is? It's burnout. I'm fucking tired.

It's invisibility. We just kind of float around being busy doing everything, but we not really seen, no one sees what we do [00:07:00] or it's resentment, those blankety blanks. Didn't, you know, but again, I'm setting it up so I have resentment for you for not doing shit that I'm doing, that I'm taking responsibility for.

I'm not allowing you to do it. So it's this weird cycle that I put myself in. You know, Joe, you're over there nodding your head. I was thinking, you mentioned earlier that it, you can apply it to your relationships and I was just thinking of relationship stuff. Like when one person and a couple gets upset at the other for not doing something and then it's, it's pretty fair for the other person to say, well, I can't read your mind.

Did you ask? I don't remember. Yeah. Well, this is the, this is the interesting thing that I, I really disliked a lot of people believe that you just show up at work. But who you are in your relationships, in your in outside work is who you are at work.

So the patterns that we set of reading, the mind of not communicating, yeah. We communicate differently. We may [00:08:00] use different words, but the pattern and the mindset is very different if you are giving everything to everybody in your relationships at home. You are likely doing that at work. If you, if everybody has access to you, you have, and you can call it boundaries.

I love calling it access. Then you are giving your time, your attention, your anxiety to every little thing and you bring that into work. I, I do believe it. It's really funny 'cause no one can read your mind. And the other thing is no one again gets the opportunity to grow and support you. So, and I had to learn that.

I had to also learn that. A great thing about it is when I do it, it's like, okay, if I'm gonna tell you, Hey, I want you to do something, and this is the good thing about this book, it literally walks through a step. I used to have to prepare for meetings with this. I did use it, and I'll go through it in a second.

So the second thing, [00:09:00] managing down with clarity, not control. And this is, again, if I'm gonna give it to you to do, if I'm gonna delegate this. Principle is delegation isn't dumping, it's developing. So if I think about this, and this is where I see a, for me, a lot of, and, and a lot of ppm Ds that I worked with is here.

Boom. There it is. You know, figure it out. And I, I, I grew up, I came up, up, up in the world of just figure it out girl. And I had, I had, um, I worked for ER consultant. And Sarah Crocker walk into her office. And I didn't know shit. I just didn't know shit. I was in land development. And she'd be like, go get the building plans.

I bring her site plans. Like I, I had no idea what the difference. And she, I walked into her office one day and everybody I've, I've talked about her before. Everybody was afraid of Sarah. And, um, I was afraid of her too. And she, she said something and I said, I don't know. And she said, well. [00:10:00] There's, there was just two of us now.

There was just two of us. I worked for her and it was just her and I. She said, well, I can't afford to pay two of us to not know, and so I, I'm paying me. She better go figure it out. Again, I would go figure it out. Um, but what I learned from that is as a person to try and go figure it out. But I also learned, um, that in, in the big four world margin, margin, margin, efficiency, you know, renders profit.

And so I don't dump, when I delegate, I develop. So when I give this to someone. I need to develop them. I need to give them input around what it is. So the mindset around this is, boundaries aren't mean. They're just leadership. I'm giving this to you. I'm developing you. This is your task. And so how do you do that?

Well, it's clear expectations, you know? One, I had to [00:11:00] prepare beforehand. I never did that. How many times, and this is something that I, I know if there's anybody listening that works in, in Big four, you, you know, how many times have you gotten on a call with your PPMD or your senior manager and they are not prepared.

They've come from another meeting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now it's like, you gotta bring them up to speed. They're not prepared. And so I started realizing, again, going back to the first segment of, you know. Not taking, I had to take responsibility. Well, my responsibility is to prepare, and then I need to clearly set my expectations and say, okay, this is what the task is that's going to be completed.

You know, this is, I need to define the metrics. I know this is what it looks like. These are the things and the outcomes and the ownership, and this is where I think of really. Important part and for me to learn [00:12:00] was that I had to give them the authority. And in the book, and I, I'll put this up, that there for you that can't see it, there is this little bookmark that they give you with this book and it's, and it's got the six steps.

And I would literally go through the six steps before my meetings. Um, actually before, before, before my meetings. Um, but in preparing, but again, it's that authority in that step. It's actually step four is you have the authority to recommend. You have the authority to inform and initiate. You have the infor authority to act.

So for instance, if I want somebody to go create a presentation deck on a project that we're getting ready to present to, you know, the, the state that we're looking at taking a project to. Okay, what do they have the authority to do? Well, I want you to develop the deck. You [00:13:00] have the authority to recommend how we do it.

You know, like what? What the process is. You have the authority to inform and initiate around your whole team to inform them, to initiate, to go and create it and do it. I want it all done. You have all of that authority to act. You do not have the authority to call anybody at the state and have a conversation or, you know, that's what I'm talking about.

What do they have the authority to do? Because I can tell you when I, for me, when I would get stuff, I'd be like, especially I would start doing shit, right? I gotta go figure this out. We can't have, you know, my mindset is I can't have two people that don't know say, okay, I'm gonna go figure it out. Well, the where is the boundary?

Because I remember I would call people inside. Um, the big four and, you know, there's, there's, I, I just pick up the phone. I'm supposed to example, I'll use a very specific example I'm supposed to develop relationships with, with companies, right? So I know these companies [00:14:00] well. There's five layers of people that I gotta go through to get to these companies, but I don't know which layer I can talk to, right?

I don't know who I can reach out to. Do I reach out to this person? Do I reach out to the, to the account manager? Do I reach, can I reach out to the client? I know somebody at the client. Again, give people the authority because we're developing them. Okay? And so one of the things that I like about this is that when I am clear about the authority that they have, then I don't have to micromanage them.

They understand it. I can allow people to rise to the occasion and recalibrate. Um, I get to give them space to own their own outcomes. And this is one of the things that I really like about, um, and it's the last thing on the step. It's, there's a step five, but I really like about, and I'll go back to [00:15:00] it, is.

When you go through this, you get to, at the end, sit down with him and say, okay, tell me what, what you're gonna do. Tell me what, what the assignment is, what authority you have, what I've told you. And Joe, this goes back to your comment about relationships. It's the act of listening. So. How many times in your relationships have you said, okay, tell me.

Tell me. You know, when we listen, when you hear, I feel this way, you as the partner, feed back to them. I heard you say that you feel this way and then you add what you're going to do, or going to say it's actively repeating back and that is one of the greatest things when I give somebody something. To have them go, okay, you tell me what, what the assignment is, what you, what you have the authority to do, what you're going to do, what you're thinking about doing, what that process is.

And I can tell you that, that doing that [00:16:00] changed my whole interaction with my team a lot because I could see where the disconnects were before they even happened. Or I could see, oh, they thought of doing this. I didn't think about that. And then we could talk more about, develop that further for me. Tell me a little bit more about what you're gonna do.

Or when I told them they had the authority to recommend, oh, they took it this way. No, this is what I meant for you to do. And then I can correct and recalibrate before, and we can sit there and go, okay, this is how you do that. So when you're managing down and you're, and you're delegating that way, use that.

They get to define, but they use their words in their terms and that's really helpful. The last thing that I do in this was also helpful is I've learned to add in [00:17:00] checkpoints, right? Add in checkpoints to we can say, okay. In a day, do an update and I wanna see X, Y, and Z because a lot of times for me is, and I've done this, I've done this, so, and it's such a waste of time.

They gimme the finished products and it's a piece of shit, you know, I. And I'm like, F and now we're ga and then who, what happens? I take it on and I take it back and nobody's learned anything because you never have time to go back and teach them. Okay. But if, if it's due on Thursday, and I used to do this when I'd work with people in their calendars, 'cause we'd go through calendars We'll take, Doug. It's due on Friday, which means he'll want it on Thursday. It's due to the client on Friday, which means he's gotta review it on at least Thursday. Okay? So you should probably have a check in on Tuesday with him to make sure you're on the right track, because really it's due Thursday.

You know? And just check in with people and go, don't just send me what you have. [00:18:00] A couple things on that. One, you can check in to see if you need to recalibrate, but two, you get to see if they're on target, if they're on time, which is really great because if they're behind and it's Wednesday and you haven't received anything from them, hey, where's my stuff?

Because if it comes to you on Thursday and it's gotta go to a partner Thursday afternoon, that means you only have from Thursday to Thursday at noon to correct anything that they screwed up or didn't screw up, but didn't make it right. So again, it starts to have this communication pathway where you can check in, but you're not micromanaging, you're just checking in, and then the red flags, and that's all you have to check for instead of going over things and doing it yourself.

Also, one thing I learned about that is that it allows you to um, to not have so much anxiety because Okay, it's in my inbox. All right. I know [00:19:00] they're working on it. Okay. Yeah, it looks good, you know? All right. Boom. I'm onto my stuff. So now we're gonna talk about managing up without politics, and this is, this is where I.

I used to sit at my computer and write an email and just hover over send because I was [00:20:00] so nervous and afraid to send out, um, to A-P-P-M-D. Um, and I was more afraid to send it out to A-P-P-M-D than my clients because I could. I, I had really good relationships with my clients, um, for the most part. Um, I did get fired by one.

Which was not a bad thing. Um, sometimes trash takes itself out and, um, but I use this same type of method. Okay, so your influence, wherever you're at, I wanna really state this, ladies, you have influence if you have ever diffused a toddler. Throwing a tantrum on aisle seven. If you've ever got someone to wear, you know, a kid to wear their, their, you know that this, they wanna, when I was a nanny, Jeffrey didn't ever wanna play.

He didn't ever wanna wear clothes. Okay? Ever, ever, ever. He was like three. Three, four, never wanted [00:21:00] to wear clothes. And so we'd have naked time and then we'd have clothes time and naked time started out to be like 30 minutes, and then we got it down to like 10 minutes, you know? But it was like, you, you, we've, we, that's influence.

If you've ever sold anything, if you've, if you've got a ring on your finger, you've influenced somebody. Okay? So in the workplace, we have influence. We don't need a title to influence. We do not, we don't need a title to be a leader, and we don't need a title to influence. Okay? So. What I had to learn was stop managing egos and start managing outcomes.

Because for me, and this is again, the principle of, of, of influence doesn't require title comes from you don't have to, if you wanna do it right, you don't have to do it yourself. The stop managing egos comes from the book, the Soar, not Giving Effect. Um, and for me, what happened here was. I, I started managing the outcomes and I started going, okay, what, okay, what does, what do they need?

What, [00:22:00] what do they need and what do they want? And then I would over communicate smartly. Um, and what it happened was, is that the trust was built on my anticipation, not of their ego, because that's all over the place. But of what they actually needed, because they would leave me alone if I could get it, oh, you need this?

Alright, boom. Then they'd leave. They'd leave me alone. But if I came in and I was like, and I let their ego kind of come in and then they just, you know, would have a conversation and I remember. I remember dealing with this partner one time and everybody was, um, he was one of these partners that would get on the phone or get on a call and you'd be correcting stuff.

He really micromanaged and you'd be correct, he'd make you correct it on the screen in front of everybody, and I'm a bad speller. And he would be. Why are you typing that? It's the, it's, you know, just go up, up three, [00:23:00] you know, we'd be in an Excel or something. Just go up or a PowerPoint or something, just go, you know, click here, I'll do it.

You know, he is one of those. And um, and it was just drive every and he was not an not very nice, I'll just put it that way. And it, and everybody. And so our, our text, you know, the internal Skype conversations between everybody, like he said, I mean, we were just tearing him down. I mean, it was just, and it would be horror for anybody 'cause you were just on the spotlight.

But. I was like, all right. So I started trying to do this. Instead of managing the ego, what I started doing was managing the outcome. And I would be into and go, okay, what do you need? And I would have conversations with him before, okay, what do you need? What do you want? I would sit there and ask him, because that's a very direct question.

If you're managing up to someone, what do you need and what do you want? And then I would repeat back again. I would go back and I would say, what do I have the authority to do? [00:24:00] Define it for me. What do I have the authority to do? Do I have the authority to recommend? Can I call somebody? Do I, you know, how do you want this?

Okay, when do you want me to check in? Okay, you've told me what you needed. Is this what? This is what I heard. If you've got someone who is saying, Hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they don't give you anything, right? Just like, like Sarah would just go do it. What I would come back and do, and I learned this the hard way in in, in my time at Big Four, is I would come back and say, so this is what I've heard you want.

And I would do this. I would kick it to them. I would say, this is what I heard you want. I can reach out to these, these people to get it and do it. And this is what it looks like. I mean, I would be as defined as possible and I would communicate to them and I would get them to sign off. And if they wouldn't, this is the other thing, if they wouldn't.

Call me or tell me like, you know, we couldn't have FaceTime, I'd email it [00:25:00] because then it's documented. And I'd say this, if I don't hear from you, 'cause this is another thing managing up. If I don't hear from you by noon today about this, we've talked about this, I wanna make sure I'm on the right track.

This is what I'm gonna do. Okay. And you put that up there and you go, if I don't hear from you this what I'm gonna do. It's right there. And again, the guy that I'm talking about. Would be it, it took him a, a while. 'cause I would throw this back in his face. I'd be like, Hey, this is what we said we were gonna do.

We said we were gonna do this. And I would use things like we and things like that. But I would over communicate what I was gonna do. Um, not in an obnoxious way, not like every five minutes and nobody has time for that shit, but on a routine basis. And it got into a routine of, on Mondays I'd go through and I'd go Tuesday, I'd go through it, you know, this is what I'm gonna do.

I put deadlines on. Okay. The other thing that I started doing was anticipating needs is I would put check check-ins with them on their [00:26:00] calendars and it would, I wouldn't block the time, but I'd say, you're getting this check-in, you know, it's due on Thursday, we're gonna do a check-in, review 15 minutes on Wednesday, you're gonna have it in your inbox.

And then on Wednesday night, I'd be like, got any comments? That's the one thing I also learned. Do not wait for them to give you fricking comments if you haven't heard that. If, if you've given them something to review and they haven't given you anything back and you know, the deadline is noon on Friday with the client and it's Thursday afternoon and they haven't said anything, okay?

That means if you let that go, there's a fire drill happening Friday morning at about 9 30, 10 o'clock, right? So go get him. Anticipate their needs. They're, they need you. They, they're gonna have comments. Very, that's, that's your job, to have comments to make, to fine tune it, right? So anticipate it. And so then framing it as a we [00:27:00] thing, this is what you want me to do.

And I also learned this, and I don't think it's manipulative, but it sure as hell says, I can't give you what you want unless you give me what I need to give you what you want. Literally, I cannot complete this task unless you give me what I need in order to do it. I need your comments. I need your time. I need this.

I need this authority to go do this. The other thing that's real important is, hey, there's an issue here. This is what I'm gonna do about it. This is what I think we should do about it. Offer the solution. I always learn that, and I think I learned that growing up. You gotta bring a solution. And we used to play this game when I was at, at Deloitte, and I really like it.

And I think, I don't know. [00:28:00] So on my team. Because again, not everybody felt comfortable about, you know, pointing out, hey, things are issues or whatever. We had this game where it was like if you got, if you, we were having a conversation and you got points, if you could go and point out something that was incorrect or wrong, or, um, could be done better, but for everything that you pointed out, you had to bring a solution.

Okay. And then at the end of the time, anybody who won, um, you know, and I add up the points, um, anybody who won would get what a get, you know, what they wanted. Like, okay, you get, you know, you know, like somebody would get a mug or someone wanted this. I mean, and, and everybody was allowed to choose their own gift in the beginning.

So it wasn't like, oh, I'm giving a stupid gift. That didn't mean anything to 'em. They could choose kind of their own gift, you know? Um, and Jason, no, was not going to get Bruins tickets, [00:29:00] although he always wanted them. But again, offer the solution so you are not their emotional support system, okay? When you do this, whether it be up or down, so whether it be the partner who's crazy, batshit crazy, running on ego, you're not his emotional support system.

So don't manage his ego, manage the outcomes, because his ego really is around the outcomes or her ego. And proactive leadership, and I'm gonna call it leadership because that is what you're doing when you're managing up. You're actually leading, you're communicating, you're saying, this is the solution, this is how we're gonna get it done.

I'm gonna get this done for you. I can do this. Okay. And it's the same thing when you're, when you're managing down, you're proactively leading. And that is influence. That gives you faster influence [00:30:00] in any passive agreement that you can ever have. I'll do it. Oh, I'll just sit here and let him, you know, type And that that guy, that partner called me, I was on, I was taken off.

Um, it was right before Christmas and he used to do this a lot and typically this is typically how I would handle it. He'd call and he'd just be twisting off. I always call it twisting off. He'd talk for like 10, 15 minutes, wouldn't say shit. And and he called me when, and, and he called me and I'd gotten to a point where I knew I wasn't gonna manage his stuff.

I kept, I literally, I was on vacation and he called me and he called, he called me on Skype and I didn't answer. He called me, you know, and then he called my cell and then he called me back. So I pick up and I'm like, and he was on West, he was on Pacific Time and I was on Eastern, and of course it was like six and I'm still working even though I'm on vacation and he's going on.

We had this client, [00:31:00] it was, he was a foreign client and he's just, and I go, okay, what do we need to do? What do you need me to do? What do you need me to do? And, and it was really interesting because at the end of like, I don't know, seven to eight minutes of him just, he was like, I, I guess we're we, we don't need to do anything.

I'm like, yeah, I wanted to go. Yeah. Dumb ass. And, and but again, that's the thing. If we focus on the outcome and we focus on what they need, I. And we don't get that and they're twisting off. What do you need? Okay. Yes. And, and what do you need? And then this is how I'm gonna do it. You've got agreement. This is the authority.

I have to do it. This is what it's gonna look like. These are the time that I'm gonna do it. Okay. And I, I wanna comment on one thing[00:32:00]

you. When you do this, you're managing your burnout, you're managing your process. And I didn't realize that. I thought I just needed to make a to-do list and I needed to, but be strategic. How are you gonna do it? I remember working with a, a younger staff member and I opened up her calendar 'cause I used to do this and there's nothing on it.

And I'm like, you're, you're like, I don't know, 70% utilized. You know, you're working, I don't know, 55, 60 hours a week. I know you're doing something. Why is your calendar not blocked? And, and we used to go through it and I'm like, because I had learned that I needed to be strategic about the time that it takes to do these things, and I needed to communicate with people [00:33:00] about it.

Again, I would use these six steps and the mentality of not everything is important. I, I like the phrase, um, if, if everything's important, then nothing's important.

If everything is important, then nothing's important. And if I'm putting out a fire, fire drill here, and fire drill there, and fire drill there, and then it's a fire. It's not a fire drill. It's a fire. If it's doing that for more than a day, it's a fire. And so I had to sit back and go, what are the priorities?

What do you want? What is my responsibility? And then do they have enough? Am I giving them enough? Am I giving them a chance to do it? And the best way for me to understand if I'm giving them the chance, is to listen and have them comment back to me. Okay, what did I tell you to do? Or talk to a partner and say, all right, is this what, this is what [00:34:00] I heard you say you wanted you, we agreement we're good.

And what this did for me was it did a, and I didn't realize this at first, but it gave me a lot of peace of mind. It gave me a lot of peace of mind and a lot of clarity. And it also kept me from doing those soul sucking, mindless things that don't promote. I didn't have to add. And it also, I was gonna say it didn't, I didn't have to add the clarifications that we always wanna add.

What it allowed me to do was it allowed me to be less of insecure here and more of focused on the point, which then allowed me to come across with clarity, with command, with compassion. And I just encourage you, we're gonna do another segment later, but I just really encourage you to think about how you do this.

The, and, and literally there's this, this [00:35:00] little thing and, and it is a checklist. Be prepared beforehand. Just take a look. Are you preparing beforehand? Clearly define the task to be completed. Be specific over detail it. Okay? Because then they're gonna go out and they're gonna do it clearly. Outline the timeframe.

Tell them the authority that they have. I expect you to be able to go do this, this, this. Hey, if you need, if you need to get something from a partner, ask your partner if you can copy them on the email so the other partner knows that you've got the partner's authority to go do that and get that. You know that, not to just disregard you because you're a manager or a senior manager.

And again, I'm talking, I'm talking big four speak, but, or, or you know, accounting speak. But again. Do you have the authority to do that? And then I'd say, I'm gonna check in. These are when you're gonna check in. Do you understand when you're gonna check in? Okay, you've got that commitment. You've signed off on this.

And that's the other thing. Get people to sign off on it, whether it be your [00:36:00] boss or whatever. We are in agreement that this is what you're gonna do. You are in agreement that this is what I'm gonna do,

and then you put that to the side and you let 'em go do it. Or your partner's over here and he lets you go do that because you start anticipating their needs and then you have the freedom to do the work that you wanna do or do the work that you don't wanna do sometimes with a lot less headache. So again, we're gonna go through more of these, but I think it's really important as, and I say this as a woman because it gave me a.

I didn't have to manage other people's shit. And there's a lot of shit that I deal with. I mean, there's enough shit to work through than trying to deal with egos and the politics 'cause that's a whole nother level. But again, if you focus on what they need and their outcomes and let the ego go aside, and that's for [00:37:00] younger stuff too, or younger teams too than my ego.

It doesn't get in there. I wanna take care of everybody to make me feel comfortable and do, do, do, do, do. And then I go home and then I resent the hell out of you because as Joe said, you didn't read my mind. You know, I help create the world that I live in, whether it be at home or in business. And when I'm trying to create that world and, and make it better and I'm doing these things and it's still crazy, then yeah, maybe I need to leave.

Find me a different world to work in. But if I'm sitting there creating the cycle, you know, you've talked, you've heard me talk about, you know, it's my turn. If I'm creating it, then why the hell am I bitching about it?

People are bouncing around in their own ignorance, just like I am at days at work, you [00:38:00] know? So the more clarity and the more I can give them, the more I'm gonna get back. And I will also tell you this as a woman, because I know that I speak to a lot of women here. When I started doing things like this, I started to have greater influence.

And my male counterparts, or my male PPDs started interacting with me very differently. One of the things that was great is they left me the fuck alone

and I don't know, it was this trust that we built, or I think it was they, they trusted that I anticipated their needs a lot and they let me do my stuff, and their comments back to me were elevated because my comments to them and my deliveries to them were elevated, or my teams, you know. And that's really great.

That was, that was one of those things that I, [00:39:00] Joe, I really liked about, about doing this because I was like, I don't have to deal with all, like, you know, you don't talk to me five freaking times in five minutes, you know, and then you're always gonna have the other PPDs that can't seem to, you know, not share every thought every second I call it.

Um. Micromanagement from occasionally from afar. You know, they come in, they zoom in, ah, and then they go away for five, five days, and then they come in. You know, you're always gonna have those. This isn't perfect, but figure it out. Like try it. I encourage you to try it. And remember, not everybody and everything deserves access to your time, your attention, or your anxiety.

Your time is precious. Your attention is precious, and your anxiety should be low.

So figure out, give [00:40:00] less fucks at work. Just make the ones you give clear. Tell them, ladies, dubs,