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Conversations that Matter Podcast: Anna Wildman, Oil in the Engine
Learn about the importance of effective leadership communication skills to enhance team engagement and performance.
Jul 23, 2024
OpenBlend Podcast Series: Conversations that Matter
Episode 5: Anna Wildman, Director of Oil in the Engine
Welcome to another episode of Conversations That Matter. Today, we're thrilled to welcome Anna Wildman, author of Powering Performance: Now You're Talking. This insightful book brought Anna and OpenBlend's Founder Anna Rasmussen, together about a year ago, leading to an exciting collaboration on a new module for OpenBlend called Lightbulb.
Anna Wildman spent a decade in The Royal Navy, taking on roles from air traffic control support to intelligence staff in Hong Kong. She then transitioned to the private sector, honing her performance management skills at Cathay Pacific Airways and later at KPMG, where she oversaw leadership development for over 140,000 employees across 143 countries.
In this episode, we delve into Anna's extensive experience and the wisdom she has encapsulated in her book. We discuss the significance of face-to-face conversations in leadership, the essential skills managers need, and how these skills can be seamlessly integrated into daily practices with the help of platforms like OpenBlend. Plus, we'll explore how Anna's insights have been incorporated into our Lightbulb module, designed to empower both managers and employees to have effective, meaningful 1:1 conversations.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to improve their management practices and foster a more engaged, motivated team.
Anna, could you give us a brief synopsis of your book, 'Powering Performance: Now You're Talking'
The book is divided into two separate halves. The first half covers the why, what, and how for each of the core conversations that managers are expected to lead, and they cover everything from the initial, setting up of the relationship and goal setting, feedback, coaching, development, and planning, all the way through to year-end reviews, and compensation conversations.
The second half mirrors the same type of process, but it is all the tough conversations that people need to have, and they are things like handling disruptive behaviour, when someone makes a major mistake, how do you handle that conversation, no promotion, no pay rise, those sorts of things.
Managers are under more pressure than ever before, what can businesses do to support their managers to be highly effective and efficient?
It's such a problem, isn't it? And yet, the irony of this is that Gallup research shows that managers create at least 70% of the engagement in their teams, so this is such a crucial touch point. The single biggest thing they [organisations] can do to help managers is give them skills and invest in them to feel confident that they know what they're doing with their people. It doesn't mean that every problem goes away because it doesn't, but it does mean that they know how to guide conversations.
They [managers] don't have to worry about it, they know how to create greater accountability, they divest themselves of some of that individual responsibility for each individual person's performance and they share that with their team, and there's a process, there's a conversation to help them do that, but it is the single biggest stress reliever that, organisations can easily help managers with.
Part of our approach with our new Lightbulb module was to acknowledge that it takes two people to have an effective 1:1 conversation. Anna, why do you think it's so important to have both sides of the conversation represented?
It is so critical, isn't it, that any working relationship is both the manager and the team member, and to integrate these skills for the team member, especially since we're used to the manager having them, but to integrate them at an early stage for the team member means that that learning takes place from day one in an organisation, which is not only transparent, so I understand what conversations I'm going to be having and my role in those, but it increases my accountability.
It increases my involvement so that when I sit down with my manager, I really know how to take the conversation forward and how to get the most out of it to help my performance. That's an unusual, almost unheard-of approach to be able to develop the skills as we go across all levels at the same time.
You can listen to the full episode, and past episodes, over at Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts.