Quick Fixes: How to manage promotion politics, culture fit, and awkward feedback from your boss (Transcript)

Please note the following transcript may not exactly match the final audio, as minor edits or adjustments could be made during production.

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another week of Fixable. I'm your host, Anne Morris. 

[00:00:06] Frances Frei: I'm your co-host Frances Frei. 

[00:00:08] Anne Morriss: This is a show where we believe meaningful change happens fast, and today we're gonna try to model that quite literally, as our 17-year-old son would say. 

[00:00:18] Frances Frei: He says “literally,” and neither you nor I says that.

[00:00:21] Anne Morriss: No, it's, it's, it's Gen Z, baby. Uh, so yes. Today we're gonna bring you another installment of our favorite series, the Quick Fix. 

[00:00:30] Frances Frei: It really is my favorite series. 

[00:00:32] Anne Morriss: Fewer people, faster progress, just the way my wife likes it. 

[00:00:38] Frances Frei: Just the way God intended. And can we take just like a really quick victory lap? 

[00:00:44] Anne Morriss: Sure, this is our show. Go for it. 

[00:00:47] Frances Frei: So I think we should now introduce the podcast as the award-winning podcast. 

[00:00:53] Anne Morriss: Yes. We are thrilled to announce that we just won Gold at the Signal Awards in the Advice and How-To category. Which is a lifestyle choice for us. 

[00:01:03] Frances Frei: And I fear is gonna give us just really increased license to give people unsolicited advice. So let me just apologize in advance. 

[00:01:13] Anne Morriss: I don't, I don't know that I, I, we may have hit the ceiling. But we’ve never given an acceptance speech before. So Frances, I think we should give it a shot. I'll start us off. 

[00:01:23] Frances Frei: Oh, please do. 

[00:01:24] Anne Morriss: Well, first of all, we wanna thank the obviously brilliant signal judges for paying attention to us. We wanna thank our amazing teams at TED and Pushkin, who we can't believe we get to work with. We, we, talk about this all the time. And we of course wanna thank you, our amazing audience. 

[00:01:44] Frances Frei: Who, I would like to pilot a name for our audience. 

[00:01:47] Anne Morriss: Yeah. 

[00:01:48] Frances Frei: Which is you, our amazing community of Fixers. 

[00:01:51] Anne Morriss: Oh, our Fixers. 

[00:01:52] Frances Frei: Our Fixers. And so I would—

[00:01:54] Anne Morriss: I love that.

[00:01:55] Frances Frei: —in my acceptance speech, the Fixers are at the center of the multiple layers of production that happen here because they bring the problems. And without that, we could have the best producers in the world, which we do, and it wouldn't matter. 

[00:02:08] Anne Morriss: We're so grateful for your willingness to come back to the show every week, for showing up, uh, as both listeners and as guests with the conviction that everything is fixable.

[00:02:19] Frances Frei: Everything is indeed fixable. 

[00:02:22] Anne Morriss: And you send us really thoughtful voicemails and questions, which is what we came to talk about today. So Frances, let's give the people what they want and get into it. 

[00:02:32] Frances Frei: Let's do it.

[00:02:41] Anne Morriss: All right. Our questions today, Frances, reflect some recurring themes in our inbox: managing your career, dealing with layoffs, making decisions with imperfect information, and as always, how to handle what I'll call awkward feedback from well-intentioned people who may not have stuck the landing. 

[00:03:03] Frances Frei: These are amongst my favorite topics.

[00:03:05] Anne Morriss: Great. Let's dive in. 

[00:03:07] ANONYMOUS CALLER #1: I have a question about promotion. I am one of those people who is in an industry that has a lot of layoffs happening. It's very unstable, and I'm meant to be going for a promotion this year. I want the title change and I want the financial boost, but the role itself is really not conducive to the way that I work. It's very siloed and I'm much more team oriented. But I'm afraid that my company will have layoffs as many of our other competitors have, and I don't know if it's worth taking the promotion, if offered, and then maybe not having as much fun at work. But if I get laid off, I have a higher title. Or should I stay in the role that I like, and if layoffs happen, I maybe go for that title later? Thank you for answering the question. 

[00:04:04] Frances Frei: Here's what I know about getting promoted into a new job. You don't have to do the job the way it's previously been done. 

[00:04:11] Anne Morriss: Right. I love this point.

[00:04:13] Frances Frei: So a job is the intersection between the job design and the person doing it. And it's not that, like, whoever takes my role doesn't have to do it exactly the way I did it. I did it based on my unique set of characteristics and the job design. So I would go in with a lot more open-mindedness and a lot more curiosity, and I would grant myself a lot more flexibility in doing it. So that's, I think, the first hiccup. Does that resonate? 

[00:04:37] Anne Morriss: Yeah. I, I, I love that. And as we, we parse the variables here, uh, I think that's one important one. I think another important one is it sounds like this is a situation where… it's like, predictions around layoffs are very totally uncertain. And so making any decision based on that prediction in this situation, just because of general industry trends, doesn't seem like a prudent way to get to the right answer here.

[00:05:04] Frances Frei: Yeah, I—we're often overconfident in our predictions. And then here, not only is it like overconfidence that layoffs are gonna happen, but then where and then which level? But then also who gets laid off? Is it new-to-the-role people? In which case when she gets promoted, she's gonna be the first one out. So I don't know. I suspect she doesn't know. I suspect that the company doesn't know. 

[00:05:25] Anne Morriss: Yeah, this is an, this is unknowable. Let's assume that that's unknowable. So let's take that variable off the table. 

[00:05:30] Frances Frei: Yeah. I like taking that variable off the table because then it becomes, do you think you can…you will have flexibility to have your traits intersect with the job and, and influence how the job gets done. If you don't, and you are sure you won't like it, I feel like it's an easy decision. Don't do it. 

[00:05:52] Anne Morriss: Yeah, you're gonna be miserable. The title and money is only gonna get you so far, and it's not gonna make up for the fact that you're showing up at work and not tapping into things that give you any energy or meaning from the job.

[00:06:04] Frances Frei: And you'll reveal that you're in it for the title and money in about 10 seconds, and then you won't be laid off, you'll be let go. So it's, uh, so that part. I also think we, if you take a new job, there's like a period of time where it would be awkward for you to take another job, like whether within the company or outside of the company. So by taking this, it's like the, you're taking away the opportunity of additional things. And I, so I would like to dial up my fear of the opportunity loss and dial down my confidence in, uh, in what precisely is gonna happen. 

[00:06:38] Anne Morriss: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I like that. And you're going directionally towards, I think, where I am with this caller, which is an unfair place, right? We have one, one voicemail. I'm reading way too much into tone. I'm reading way too much into kind of the, the calculus that she's wrestling with, but I find myself wanting to push her on what she wants from her job and her work and her life right now. I, I, I, I wanna know, you know, what does she wanna learn? What does she wanna contribute? Where does she wanna be in 3, 5, 10 years? And then with that clarity, look back at this decision and decide, does this fit into, like, who and where I wanna be or doesn't it? I, I mean. Uh, it's, there's this concept of animal spirits in, in economics, which is, um, it's, it's typically used to describe irrational market behavior, but I'm like craving some, like ambition and desire. Right? And energy, uh, on behalf of this caller, like I really want her to, to tap into those— 

[00:07:53] Frances Frei: Yeah. 

[00:07:54] Anne Morriss: —animal spirits. Again, caveat, caveat, caveat. I'm using this inappropriately, but I want, I want those animal instincts to, to show up and be part of this conversation.

[00:08:03] Frances Frei: And I also would say that, you know, misery because I'm learning something hard and it's uncomfortable, misery because I'm working with toxic people, misery because like, I'd also wanna double click on that. And all things being equal in 2024. Oh my goodness. Go towards the steepest part of the learning curve. The steepest part. 

[00:08:26] Anne Morriss: I love that. And if this is an organization that is promoting people into disconnection and isolation and silos, then let's fix that. 

[00:08:35] Frances Frei: Yeah. 

[00:08:36] Anne Morriss: Right? Because if that's, if that's true for her, then that's gonna be true for other talented people like her in the organization who also don't wanna be promoted into these roles that are not meaningful. And so yeah. Show up, fix it. 

[00:08:50] Frances Frei: Yeah. 

[00:08:50] Anne Morriss: You, you obviously have, uh, some capital to spend here if you're on the promotions track, and let's spend it at the systems level, which, oh, by the way, will teach you, will be an amazing, as you say, an amazing learning curve and ability to contribute to this organization and reduce the probability back to where we started, that you or anyone else is gonna be laid off because of the success of this company is now more likely. Frances, let's go to our next caller. Lots of people are looking for jobs right now, and our next question comes from someone who knows exactly what he doesn't want in his next role. So let's listen. 

[00:09:28] Frances Frei: Let's listen. 

[00:09:30] ANONYMOUS CALLER #2: Hey, Anne and Frances. I have been with the organization for the past four years now in a senior level role. I have watched it grow immensely and made some great friends where I'm at. Recently, we've had a switchover of our executive team and the culture's kind of taken one to the worse, where we are valuing bureaucracy. We are valuing friendships over facts. And we're not really moving towards conflict. We're even going towards accountability in a way that really built this organization from the ground up.With that, I know I'm not gonna change my executive team's mind. I'm wondering, can you give me some advice on how to ask the correct questions or in the correct way to my next employer to better understand truly their culture, how they view conflict, how they move towards conflict, and then when there is failure, how do you work through that rather than sitting it under the rug and actually sharing hard details with one another?

Thank you. 

[00:10:30] Frances Frei: Oh, alright. Well I don't know what your reaction was to the first caller, but my reaction to this caller is love. 

[00:10:36] Anne Morriss: I, yeah, I, I'm, uh, the pulse is quickening. I am making the assumption, Frances, that he is making the right decision in jumping ship. Are you with me on that one? 

[00:10:49] Frances Frei: I'm with you on that one.

[00:10:49] Anne Morriss: Okay. Alright, so he's trying to suss out the situation, the culture of his next organization. How does he do that?

[00:10:57] Frances Frei: Let's start in the formal interview process, which is one, you can pay attention to what happens in the interview, but I would really look to talk to additional people and the people that we typically don't talk to that might be the most value here are peers. So talk to who would be your peers, 'cause they, first of all, they have no skin. You, you don't, they don't report to you. You don't report to them. And that's usually who's on your interview chain. Talk to peers as close to the same level as possible. And I would ask them a, a series of questions.

Um, one, one question is, um, what gets in the way of people doing their best work? 

[00:11:36] Anne Morriss: Mm, that's a great one. 

[00:11:38] Frances Frei: And then as they're answering that, you can get some form of when do people really thrive here? Right? So it's that sort of conversation around thriving, people will be energized to answer it. They'll drop all kinds of clues. Another question that will, and that, 'cause that's what we want the, we want the clues. Another question is, which unwritten rule would be most helpful for someone like me to know? 

[00:12:03] Anne Morriss: Hmm. That's a nice one too. 

[00:12:05] Frances Frei: Yeah. Just to get it, to get it going. And then the, the last one is because he asked about failure and conflict, and he has a very progressive and awesome view of conflict, right? High performing teams have more conflict. He was lamenting that conflict got swept, swept under the rug, and that leads to mediocrity. So, I get it. So I might even ask for an example of when is a time when conflict in the organization, the other side of conflict led to an awesome outcome? And when's a time when conflict in the organization really derailed things? And can you just help me understand how that, help me understand the difference at Company X? 

[00:12:48] Anne Morriss: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:12:48] Frances Frei: I'm trying to ask open-ended enough, rich enough. They don't have to answer the question specifically, but I'm telling them which pasture I want to hear them talk to. And then I'd be listening hard for, for clues to what I am most afraid of and what I am most yearning. 

[00:13:04] Anne Morriss: I love that. I mean, what is great about the situation is he's leaving, is that he's leaving with a lot of conviction and insight about the kind of culture that he doesn't want to be in. And I think starting with that list, and I love, I love putting conflict on there. I, I think is a, is a great starting place in terms of asking questions. I wanna pull back and talk for a minute about how we think about culture generally, because I think this is good material here. So, our point of view is that there's not an inherently good or bad culture per se. I think around the extremes, yes, like toxic culture is universally a bad idea when you're building an organization. But generally what we look at is what are the hopes and dreams of an organization? What are its ambitions and how well is its culture aligned with those ambitions? So a disconnect that we'll often see, for example, is a company with a strategy that relies on like fast innovation or deep creativity. And then there's a culture that's been built and cultivated that is relatively.

[00:14:13] Frances Frei: Relatively bureaucratic. 

[00:14:14] Anne Morriss: Yeah. Or conflict averse. 

[00:14:15] Frances Frei: Yeah. 

[00:14:15] Anne Morriss: 'Cause we know that so much of creativity and innovation comes from what your uh, wonderful colleague, Linda Hill has described as creative abrasion. 

[00:14:24] Frances Frei: Yeah. 

[00:14:24] Anne Morriss: Right? But so we see those kinds of disconnects all the time. Okay, so that is one, one lens I would bring to this. What is this organization's culture? Once you get a sense, I think your questions are an awesome starting place. And how, how well aligned is it with where the organization wants to go? We think of culture informally as how are things really done around here right now? How do not, how do they talk about them or how do they describe the organization on the website, but how are things really done around here? And I think what you wanna get at is the truth of organizational behavior. So the things I might add to your list, Frances— 

[00:15:01] Frances Frei: Yeah. 

[00:15:02] Anne Morriss: —is, in his pursuit are, um. How are mistakes treated? 

[00:15:07] Frances Frei: Awesome. 

[00:15:07] Anne Morriss: Right? Someone fucks up somewhere and how does the organization respond? You know, the other thing I would push on in this moment in time is asking about the return to office remote work policy, and does it make sense for this business, this company, this industry, I think is a really important tell, but more important, how did the company get to this policy? Was it thoughtful? Was it being handed down from the top, or were lots of voices involved in getting to the right answer? Are they approaching this as a really important experiment that they're gonna continue to revisit and update based on the data? These policies affect every single person in the building, in many organizations, and, and so bringing deep thought and care to how you got there is a really important culture tell. And again, not that there's a right or wrong, right, policy per se, but how well aligned is the policy with the work this organization does and and its own ambitions? 

[00:16:15] Frances Frei: You know, as we're recording this, that is like the issue. And what I like about it is, again, we don't, uh, it's not that you care what, oh, we want it to, we want it this much or that much, but just how they talk about it. 'cause you can also hear how do they talk about people that agree with them? How do they talk about people that disagree with them? Do we make two dimensional caricatures of people that don't think like us? Do we respect everyone? Like I think so much…so that to me…golly, if you could only ask one question, it might just be that one because so much will get revealed. 

[00:16:45] Anne Morriss: And so where I push this caller is, is just to look for how culture is revealed in these examples and stories and behaviors. I think you can say how, how would someone describe the culture or how would an anthropologist describe what they were saying? I think the best data you're gonna get is from very tangible examples. I think how lower status employees are treated in the organization is a huge culture tell. I think the norms, not the policies, the norms around advancement and promotion are really important culture tells. So I would put all of these things on the table in both formal and informal conversations because I also think the data you're getting from both and is it the same or different, is also gonna be a meaningful part of your search for the truth here.

[00:17:33] Frances Frei: I, I love it. So I recently heard a CEO talking, and they said their favorite question, anytime they gather a group of people, their favorite question to ask them is, if you had my job, what would you do? What's the first thing you would wanna do if you were CEO? 'cause people could go anywhere on that and how much you could learn from it. So I might even if the conditions are right, be tempted to ask some form of, if you had twice as many decision rights tomorrow as you do today, what would you do with them? 

[00:18:06] Anne Morriss: Yeah, I love that. 

[00:18:07] Frances Frei: So here's, here to me is the takeaway. Open-ended questions that people can answer with rich texture. And then it's in listening to the rich texture, you are gonna get a sense of this.You can also talk to people that formally worked there. So a relatively quick LinkedIn search of people that are your, in your network that formally worked there. If you reach out to them, don't say, “Oh, I'd like to meet you for coffee.” 'Cause we all get those requests and nobody wants to do them. But I would benefit from three to five minutes of your time with a conversation about blank and just give the company's name. So now I'm gonna do a confession: when people reach out to connect with me, I usually answer yes. And if they send me a message right away that says, “Really love to get on your calendar to have a conversation,” I unconnect, I go back into who they are and I disconnect. 

[00:19:04] Anne Morriss: You disconnect. 

[00:19:04] Frances Frei: I disconnect when they do that because it is such a strong signal of who they're gonna be in the world and they don't value my time. I a'm not gonna have a conversation. Now if they said, “I understand, you know, I would love two to three minutes of your time to ask you about blank. I promise I'll be efficient.” I would do it in a second. So, vague asks terrify people like me, people like me. A little neurodiverse, but really, let's just call it very busy. 

[00:19:34] Anne Morriss: Yeah. And the signal is I, you know, I'd love to just casually use your time. Not a chance in the world. You read that first. 

[00:19:40] Frances Frei: Not a chance in the world will I do it. 

[00:19:42] Anne Morriss: Yeah. I think that's a very important public service announcement. And last but not least, next up is an email from a listener confronted with some uncomfortable feedback. Frances, I think this one, 

[00:20:01] Frances Frei: it's right up my alley. 

[00:20:02] Anne Morriss: It's right up your alley. 

[00:20:03] Frances Frei: It's right up my alley. And it's because feedback used well is an amazing accelerant of performance. And yet feedback is rarely used well, and I hope we can clarify it in this conversation.

[00:20:16] Anne Morriss: Definitely. So in the email, the listener has gotten some feedback from their boss about something called executive presence.

That's a, that's the sound of your head, exploding. What? What is that? 

[00:20:31] Frances Frei: It's the sound of my head exploding. 

[00:20:34] Anne Morriss: All right, so here are our listener writes: “I've gotten feedback from my boss that I have an executive presence problem.” Listeners, Frances is giving the screen the finger. “How do I address it? I'm too embarrassed to ask too many follow up questions and would prefer to just take care of it, but I don't know where to start.” 

[00:20:55] Frances Frei: So I'm gonna take the email writer at at their intended tone, which is, they believe the person is accurate, they believe they're onto something and they want to address whatever they're onto. So I believe all of that. And you don't wanna ask follow up questions. I, here is one question I would ask. Awesome. Can you name for me a few people who you think have awesome executive presence? Just so that I can have in my mind's eye, what great looks like. 

[00:21:20] Anne Morriss: Yeah, and I'm trying to interpret your sign language, earlier, as I was reading the email. 

[00:21:26] Frances Frei: Oh yeah. 

[00:21:26] Anne Morriss: Because listeners, she was giving the finger. 

[00:21:29] Frances Frei: Oh no. No. If my boss came up to me and said I had an executive presence problem, my boss would have a problem. Like, like I—

[00:21:35] Anne Morriss: Use your words. Tell, tell me what you're feeling, Frances. 

[00:21:38] Frances Frei: I'm feeling New York. I'm feeling New York. 

[00:21:40] Anne Morriss: Why the strong emotions on this one? 

[00:21:41] Frances Frei: Because it is, uh, such an overconfident, under-caring, summary, loaded statement that it is very hard for me to think that this came from like a deep place of, um, of thought and care. It seems casual. 

[00:22:01] Anne Morriss: Okay. Got it. Can I push you on this? Because one of, I think your beautiful messages—it's a long list—is that we are often awkward with each other in giving feedback. You're, you're on a mission to up the world's feedback games. Which is, I know another conversation. But let's say, let's say the boss is onto something here and has awkwardly shared this observation with me, and the boss is conflict averse, so he just yelled and walked. So yeah, no, that's where, let say there's some substance here.

[00:22:33] Frances Frei: If there's substance here, then do what I said in the first time. Okay. Listen, if somebody says to me, “I have a gift to give you, it's a secret that's gonna help you get better and it, it would be my honor to show it to you.” I'd be leaning in. So a lot of it is gonna be with the tone of this, but whenever anybody comes up and says, you have a problem? 

[00:22:59] Anne Morriss: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:22:59] Frances Frei: It's like that's way awkward. 'cause what We know a lot of things about feedback that leads to improvement less than 1% of the time. Right. So that's where my reaction, right, is. 

[00:23:09] Anne Morriss: So we're gonna grade, we're gonna grade the messenger poorly for this.

[00:23:12] Frances Frei: Now, and then, if you want to learn from them, right, 'cause we, I wanna learn from people that are poor messengers. That's why I would ask for the illustrative examples. 

[00:23:19] Anne Morriss: Yep. That's great. So here's, here's where, what I might add, I, again, we have very little context here, but it, if you are too embarrassed to ask a follow-up question, it's a small clue that— 

[00:23:34] Frances Frei: Your boss has just been really awkward. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry.

[00:23:42] Anne Morriss: Here's what I'll say. There is a chance that there's a part of you that is trying to protect you by making sure that you play small. That's like my, that would be my tough love response in, in this situation. And again, we have, we have no information. Yeah, right. But this is the other pathway here. Let's say there is that, the thread here that might be worth pulling on is that. There is some part of you that isn't yet— 

[00:24:11] Frances Frei: Wow. Okay. 

[00:24:12] Anne Morriss: —isn't yet taking up the space that may be required so that other people are willing to be guided by you. And if I give the, the boss the benefit of the doubt, what he or she or they could be saying is that I do see some real leadership potential here and there is a gap between what's possible because you have all this other awesome stuff going on that there's this, there's this style choice or there's an emotional frequency or you know, any of the words that I would pull outta my hat that might be material to how quickly you can accelerate down that path. 

[00:24:52] Frances Frei: So here's what I love about it. There's, there is the art of giving feedback of which boss gets a low grade. But when you've been given ineffective feedback, what, how do you receive it well, how do you learn from it? So in that case, if I was going to use your generosity of spirit, I might ask for a few illustrative examples of what I did. So instead of illustrative examples of other people, I'd be like, awesome. I wanna do it. If I had magic dust and sprinkled it on my past, can you just tell me like two or three interactions that you might have wanted to, or two or three observations that you think could have gone differently? So I would lower the stakes of their providing illustrative examples, and so I might use that language to do it.

[00:25:32] Anne Morriss: So let me push on one other, one other piece of this, Frances, let's say. I have self-diagnosed that executive presence is an area of opportunity for me. 

[00:25:44] Frances Frei: Oh, all right. 

[00:25:44] Anne Morriss: And I wanna get better. Okay, what is, what does good look like here? 'Cause this, this is a term that's not super well defined. What does good look like? Where have I missed the mark? What else would you put on that list of ways that I can work on executive presence? 

[00:25:58] Frances Frei: Well, the shortlist of what I would do is watch the WNBA finals and look at Nafisa Collier. And Nafisa Collier had amazing executive presence. I don't know that she would identify herself as an executive, but she did the entire time and there was high drama, low drama.

She was composed, she made people better the whole time. So that would be, if I was gonna ask you to consume art, I would go have you go consume, go watch Nafisa Collier, who I think, uh, is great, but if I was gonna do it without doing that, and I was just gonna plant things in your mind, the reason we wanna have executive presence is the everything we do should be about setting other people up for success. So the way in which I comport myself, does it permit the best version of you to show up? If yes, I'm gonna go ahead and say I have executive presence, and if no, I don't. So the words executive presence are a label, I would just try to think, when do other people show up as the best version of themselves? And then I would go and start observing people anywhere, whether it's in the WNBA finals or anywhere in the organization who's the person, like, around you the best version of people show up. So I would wanna look at the micro things that you're doing in order to observe that. So I would become a student of who does what to create this fabulous stuff in their wake. 

[00:27:19] Anne Morriss: I would also bring some biology into this. This is a controversial statement among biologists, but the shorthand is, I think we are pack animals as human beings, and we do relax into what our contribution is gonna be more often when there is a pack leader who is comfortable in their leadership skin, and I think that's one part of this executive presence equation. Okay, so how do you get more comfortable taking up this kind of space? Because it is a decision to take up a different kind of space in the world. I sometimes will advise people to get physically stronger. 

[00:28:03] Frances Frei: I love it. 

[00:28:04] Anne Morriss: And create an actual physiological foundation with all the beautiful hormonal payoffs of getting physically stronger. And that can have a big impact. That can have a big impact on our own psychology about the role that we should be playing in the world. So I would say get bigger and stronger. And this is for all genders. And then I would also say to start practicing being uncomfortable, um, and getting more comfortable with discomfort. So small goals like pushing yourself to use your voice more in meetings and that, the starting point may be asking more questions, but just practice some of these leadership currencies. And I, you know, I suspect if you're asking this question, there's not a risk that you're gonna go overboard here. So, um, just pushing yourself into that, that taking up space zone, I think will start to clear the emotional pathway of leadership for you. 

[00:29:10] Frances Frei: And for some people, it—this would be true for me—it would help me to know that I'm taking up space and I'm getting uncomfortable and I'm doing all these things on behalf of others. I'm doing it so that I will be able to set other people up for success more. So it's not like a selfish act. It's actually an, an act of service. 

[00:29:29] Anne Morriss: No, and I have to say that some of the most effective leaders in our lives started from the where I suspect this caller is, and a big part of their journey to taking up space and being comfortable in that pack leader role is a mission that was bigger than themselves.

[00:29:49] Frances Frei: Yeah. 

[00:29:50] Anne Morriss: Uh, and it pulls you out of that self distraction that can keep you small. The metaphor we'll sometimes use is look away from the mirror and out the window at the, the impact you wanna have and the people you wanna be of service to. 

[00:30:04] Frances Frei: I love it.

[00:30:08] Anne Morriss: Alright everyone, that's our show. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, please get in touch if you wanna figure out your workplace problem together or not together, as in this format where you remain totally anonymous. Uh, except for your words. Email us with any thoughts, emotions, feelings you have at [email protected] or call us at 234-FIXABLE.

That's 234-349-2253. You can even text us if that's easier. 

[00:30:35] Frances Frei: We really love a good text. I'm not actually sure the last time I wrote an email. 

[00:30:39] Anne Morriss: Yeah, I think it's been decades. Yeah. So communicate by any means necessary, get in touch. We're so grateful to everyone who's reached out to us with a problem. We quite literally couldn't make the show without you.

Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced by Rahima Nasa from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Izzy Carter, Banban Chang, and Roxanne Hai Lash. 

[00:31:07] Frances Frei: This episode was mixed by Louis at Story Yard. If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell a friend to check us out.

[00:31:16] Anne Morriss: And one more thing, if you can please take a second to leave us a review. It really helps us make a great show.