0:01

Ted Audio Collective. So

0:07

Francis, my social

0:10

media feed looks

0:12

a little different from yours. Mine

0:16

is filled with like philosopher

0:19

daily and the secure

0:21

relationship, which is a

0:23

great follow by the way. But

0:26

yours is like AV

0:28

equipment ESPN

0:30

and the Brownville Maine deer

0:33

pantry. Deer, live

0:36

shots of deer eating. Making

0:38

sure they eat in the winter, they get

0:41

food. Yes, recommend it. But

0:44

so one phrase that will get passed

0:46

around my feed every

0:48

once in a while is check

0:50

in on your strong friend. I

0:52

have no idea what that means. Which I'm gonna

0:55

explain and explain why I love

0:57

it. But it's

0:59

like, you usually check in on your needier

1:01

friends. Oh yes. But you never check in

1:04

on your strong friend. Oh, I don't. Yeah,

1:06

so I

1:08

love this one because I'm sometimes that

1:11

strong friend. Not always, but often that

1:13

strong friend. But what I

1:15

love about it is it's a reminder that

1:18

the signals we send about being

1:20

all set can sometimes get

1:22

in the way of getting our

1:24

needs met. And we can

1:27

even confuse ourselves with

1:30

these signals. And this

1:32

phenomenon, it happens with

1:35

friends, with our partners, but also at

1:37

work. It resonates so deeply

1:39

to me when I walk the

1:42

halls at HBS and who

1:44

am I gonna check in on? I

1:46

am now feeling very sheepish. I don't ever

1:48

check in on the strong friends. Yeah. I

1:51

check in on, I have my list of people. I just wanna

1:53

make sure they're okay. And so check in

1:55

on your strong friend. Make sure they're okay too.

1:57

I love it. All right, well. Let's

2:00

get into it, because I think this may show

2:02

up in our next conversation. I'm

2:08

Anne Morris. I'm a company builder and leadership

2:11

coach. And I'm Frances Price. I'm

2:13

a Harvard Business School professor. And I'm Anne's

2:15

wife. And this is Fixable

2:17

from the TED Audio Collective. On

2:19

this show, we believe that meaningful

2:21

change happens fast, anything

2:23

is fixable, and good solutions are

2:25

often just a single brave conversation

2:27

away. Who do we have today,

2:29

Anne? Frances, today we have someone

2:32

on the show we're going to be calling Kaitlin,

2:34

who's running into a problem I think a lot

2:36

of listeners will relate to. Let's

2:38

hear directly from her. Hi,

2:40

Anne and Frances. My name

2:43

is Kaitlin, and I work

2:45

in an account-based marketing advertising

2:47

company. My current

2:49

challenge at work today is

2:51

that I hold

2:53

a director-level position, which

2:56

I report to

2:58

a vice president, who in turn

3:00

reports to the CEO of the

3:02

company. On several

3:04

occasions, the CEO has approached me

3:06

to carry out a specific task,

3:09

placing me in uncomfortable situations

3:12

as I don't want to

3:14

override my boss's directives. I

3:17

would really appreciate if you could help

3:19

me with this. Thank you. Oof,

3:24

this is awkward. I

3:27

remember this, I

3:29

was helping a company, and the CEO

3:32

would skip over their

3:34

direct team and go to the direct

3:37

reports of the direct team. And if you

3:39

want to know how to make your direct

3:41

team insane, how did that

3:43

work out? did not work out. And

3:46

the CEO was not intending

3:48

to introduce madness, but

3:51

it introduced madness. So I

3:53

love that the color is

3:55

so sensitive to the trouble.

3:57

I think the trouble would loom really well.

4:00

really large. All right, well, let's

4:02

see if we can't head off some madness in

4:04

this area. Uncontrollable

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Work wherever you get your podcasts. Oh,

6:12

Caitlin, welcome to Fixable. Thank

6:15

you so much for having me today, guys.

6:18

We're really excited to get into this with you. So

6:21

let's just get started. Tell us a little bit about the work that

6:23

you do. So I'm

6:25

currently a marketing director

6:27

at an account-based sales

6:29

and data company. So

6:32

my main responsibility is

6:34

crafting the strategy here

6:36

in the US, also

6:39

supervising a team

6:41

of content creators and a

6:43

graphic designer in order to create

6:45

all the branding of our company.

6:49

And I also am

6:51

in charge of communications,

6:54

mostly external communications and how

6:56

we craft our storytelling.

7:00

To future clients, current clients? Yes,

7:02

to future and current clients. Nice.

7:06

Okay, so we heard your voicemail and we want

7:08

to really get into the tension

7:11

you're feeling between your CEO and

7:13

your direct desk. So give us a sense of what's going

7:16

on. So my

7:19

problem today is that I

7:21

have a really close relationship

7:23

with the CEO. We're both

7:26

Mexicans and we have that

7:29

culture understanding about how to

7:31

do certain things, etc.

7:35

And sometimes I feel

7:37

like he's asking me

7:39

to overstep my direct

7:41

boss. Like

7:43

for example, you need to

7:45

implement this sales and marketing

7:48

strategy without getting my boss's

7:50

approval or budget

7:53

stuff, things like that. It's

7:56

always a conversation, I believe, with my

7:58

boss. Sometimes I can't. I

8:00

don't know how to approach that issue. I

8:02

don't know how

8:04

to communicate to both of them, like, hey,

8:07

please, like, don't put me in the situation that

8:09

I'm in the middle. Like, to

8:11

be honest, I'm quite confused.

8:14

I can imagine. Tell

8:17

us, like, the last time

8:19

this happened, just so we have some texture

8:21

around the specifics, can

8:23

you just walk us through what

8:25

happened? Sure. This

8:28

happened just over a month

8:30

ago that we are developing

8:32

a new storytelling for a

8:34

go-to-market strategy for 2024. And...

8:38

For your own company? Yeah, for

8:40

my own company. And

8:44

I'm all, of course, we're

8:46

working between the CEO, the

8:48

VP of sales, the VP

8:50

of marketing, myself and other

8:52

directors. And we

8:54

came up with a great idea, etc.

8:57

However, the CEO approached me

9:00

directly and he was like, okay, now

9:02

you need to implement this company-wise. And

9:04

I'm like, okay, but you don't have

9:06

to buy in from my boss.

9:08

Like, that kind of

9:10

instruction needs to come from him

9:13

and not from you. Like, I

9:15

cannot overstep to what he's actually

9:17

doing right now. So

9:20

I felt, like, very uncomfortable. I didn't know

9:22

how to approach the situation. I didn't know

9:24

how to communicate properly. It

9:26

was weird. Yeah. The

9:28

CEO walks in the room and pulls

9:31

you aside and they're like, hey, Caitlin,

9:33

and like, what happens? What

9:36

happens to your head and like, what happens

9:38

to your body? For example, my relationship

9:40

right now that I also have with

9:42

my direct boss, that it's amazing. We

9:45

have conversations every day. We talk

9:47

about, like, when I'm not

9:50

doing okay or if I

9:52

need something, the same him.

9:54

So it's like, okay,

9:57

I don't want to, like, break that truck.

10:00

and relationship. That's how

10:02

I feel. I'm like, okay, but whenever

10:05

the CR like wants to

10:07

talk to me about this kind of situations,

10:10

it's like, okay, I appreciate that

10:12

you trust me, but there's

10:16

like your direct report is the

10:18

vice president, not myself. Yeah.

10:21

And you said when you in the example

10:24

you just offered, it

10:27

sounds like you did give him a

10:29

little bit of this feedback or that

10:31

was going through your head. I did

10:33

give him a little feedback. I told

10:35

him like, okay, but did you talk

10:37

to him already? Is he

10:39

aware of this plan that you

10:41

have? Have you reach out

10:45

to him or set up a meeting? Can we like

10:47

set up a meeting like the

10:49

three of us? And he's

10:51

like, no, no, no, he's gonna be fine. So

10:53

I was like, no,

10:55

like, no, this shouldn't be the

10:58

way it should be done. So

11:00

in that case, I just

11:02

went straight to my boss and like talked

11:04

to him. Hey, I don't want to overstep

11:06

you. He asked me to

11:09

do this, but I know he

11:11

wants this to be implemented, but I don't

11:13

want to execute it

11:15

without your feedback and your

11:17

like opinion. And then what

11:19

happened? He got a little bit

11:22

mad at the beginning. He was like, like,

11:25

what's going on here? Like, why

11:27

is he doing this? And I'm

11:29

like, okay, calm down. Nothing happened.

11:31

I just came to you because

11:33

I don't want to like damage

11:35

our relationship, but he definitely

11:37

wants to do that. Let's

11:39

keep them keep him happy and let's

11:42

find a solution between us

11:44

two. And he agreed and

11:46

we're like reviewing the whole

11:48

strategy right now. And

11:50

we're about to launch it within

11:53

the next month. Beautiful.

11:55

That's feels like a super productive

11:58

resolution of the problem. your

12:00

feeling now that it's

12:02

going to happen again? I

12:05

feel it's going to happen every

12:08

single time. Whenever, like,

12:10

some, if we have a budget

12:12

conversation or we want to launch

12:14

a new project, I

12:16

feel like he's going

12:18

to come directly to me before

12:20

talking to my boss. What's

12:23

the relationship like between your

12:26

VP and the CEO? Can

12:28

you describe that dynamic? They're

12:30

very close. They talk

12:32

every day. I'd

12:36

say that it's amazing. I

12:38

think the only problem sometimes

12:40

is that might be a little bit of

12:43

a culture barrier and that

12:45

sometimes whenever the CEO

12:47

wants to just express his ideas, it's going to

12:49

be easy to come to me because

12:52

we both are from the same

12:54

country and we relate

12:57

each other more

12:59

easily, probably, than my

13:01

boss that he's from

13:03

the U.S. When

13:06

the three of you are in communication, how

13:08

often does that happen and what's that dynamic

13:10

like? This

13:13

happens. So when

13:15

the three of us, it's great. We

13:18

talk a lot. We

13:20

discuss about new ideas, etc.

13:22

But when it comes to

13:24

execute something, that's

13:27

when the CEO

13:29

comes directly to me. And

13:32

do you have no reason to believe that

13:34

your boss has gone to the CEO and

13:36

said, knock it off? Not

13:39

yet. No, I've told

13:41

my boss, again, I've told

13:43

him probably two or three

13:45

times, like, hey, this is

13:48

something that he asked, but

13:51

I want you to be aware because I don't

13:53

want to be stuck in the middle and lose

13:56

your trust and his trust. what

14:00

has been your boss's response? That

14:03

he really appreciates me coming

14:05

directly to him and

14:08

not ignoring him as a

14:10

direct supervisor. Yeah,

14:12

super trust building. Yeah. What

14:16

do you think, what's the cost from your perspective

14:18

of not solving this

14:20

problem? That-

14:23

That's just for you personally. That

14:27

it's hard for me to

14:29

see any growth potential because it's

14:32

like, okay, yeah, she's the person that

14:34

the CEO trusts the most, but

14:37

they're not empowering me to get

14:39

a promotion, for example, or to

14:41

find like another, like how do

14:44

I get into a VP or

14:46

senior director level? I feel everyone's

14:48

comfortable with me being very proactive,

14:50

me being stuck in the middle

14:53

and et cetera, but yeah,

14:56

she's awesome, she's performing, but I don't

14:58

know, I feel like they're

15:00

not talking to me like, okay,

15:03

we're doing this because we want to empower

15:05

you more and this is the path we

15:07

want you to take. Right,

15:10

right. It's casual. Yeah. It's

15:13

a casual stretch assignment, not a formal development

15:15

path. Yes. I

15:17

just want to go back to a previous statement. You

15:20

talked about some other attributes that

15:24

define who you are in the

15:27

workplace. So you're proactive, you're

15:29

a problem solver, you're

15:31

entrepreneurial. So indulge

15:33

me in a little bit of self promotion.

15:36

So what else is on that list? Like

15:38

what makes you awesome to work with? I'm

15:42

always fixing problems. As

15:45

a good marketer, I wear multiple hats.

15:48

That was my suspicion. All

15:51

right, two more questions. And then we're

15:53

going to dive in and make progress. Have

15:56

you experienced this kind of tension

15:58

in other jobs? other relationships in

16:01

your life? Mmm. Does

16:04

it feel really new? No, no.

16:06

Not another job. In

16:10

relationships, being on the problem solver,

16:12

yes. And getting stuck in

16:14

the middle? Yes. Is that as similar

16:16

to you? Family and friends.

16:19

Yeah. Francis, where are we? We

16:23

have a superstar employee. And

16:26

as a result of her being

16:29

so darn good in such ambiguous

16:31

circumstances, she's being over

16:33

relied on. And it's

16:36

got a sister problem, which is you're

16:38

so competent, are we overlooking

16:41

your needs? There

16:43

are two problems. One

16:46

problem is your career

16:48

path, which is that

16:51

it's a little too vague right now.

16:54

It's not like you know I need to do these things in order to

16:56

be promoted. So we could use some

16:59

formality in the career path.

17:01

And then the other one

17:03

is the interpersonal dynamic, which

17:06

is really interesting is that

17:08

each dyad is

17:10

really strong. So I

17:12

see it as two issues. And

17:15

they might be feeding each other, but I

17:18

hope in our conversation today we can solve both.

17:21

Yeah. I love that. Does that

17:23

resonate? Yes. Yeah.

17:26

It makes a lot of sense. Does

17:28

that feel true to you? Yes.

17:30

100%. How does

17:32

it feel to have that said out loud? It

17:35

feels actually like good. It's

17:39

the first time that someone

17:41

tells me that I have the sister

17:43

problem. I'm

17:46

trying to fix everyone. Awesome.

17:49

All right, Frances, you got a little momentum. So

17:51

where does your mind go in solutions here? Yeah.

17:55

So I'm going to do the career

17:57

advancement one first. which

18:00

is I think

18:03

you want to schedule time and

18:05

I would do it in proper

18:07

sequencing, so with your boss, and

18:11

say, you know, I want to reserve

18:13

time to very selfishly talk about me.

18:17

And so schedule that for next Monday, a

18:19

week from Monday, whenever it is, but I

18:21

want you to code it. It's not, can

18:23

I have a minute? It's

18:25

an hour. And you're

18:28

asking selfishly to talk about you,

18:30

and then you want to talk about your

18:34

career advancement. So

18:36

I want you to stay as long as

18:39

you can on that and ask, you

18:41

don't have to solve the problems. In fact,

18:43

ask your boss, like, what does career advancement

18:45

look like for me? If I

18:48

was more ambitious than that, whatever they

18:51

say, imagine

18:53

that I'm more ambitious than that.

18:55

How might I accelerate that? So

18:59

you want to, like, what does an accelerated

19:02

career path look like for you? Because you're

19:04

willing to do whatever they put on the

19:06

list. I am sure you will do. But

19:10

what isn't happening is that

19:12

there, nobody is formalizing what those things

19:15

are. So we're just using you as a great

19:17

utility player. So I would ask what

19:19

does it take? And, you know, I think

19:21

you're two titles away from the VP. Is

19:23

that right? Yeah,

19:25

two titles away. Yeah. So I would

19:28

like what does it look like for

19:30

the next one? And then I

19:32

want to be a VP one day, like, let's

19:34

look at both of them. So what's

19:36

your reaction to this idea?

19:39

I love it. I am actually taking notes. Good.

19:44

And then you're coaching on the how I

19:46

think is really important. Yeah, I

19:48

almost want you to just imagine that

19:51

you're your favorite person to do things

19:53

for. And you're like, Look,

19:55

I want to make sure this person is is thriving.

19:57

So have that little bit of distance so it

19:59

doesn't feel selfish. And I would, you're

20:02

striving for as much clarity as possible. So

20:04

if they give you clarity, great. If

20:07

they don't give clarity, you can

20:09

ask for so what would that look like? And

20:12

just keep your follow up questions

20:14

so that you have the clarity.

20:17

And then you say, so let me play this

20:19

back to you. Is this right? And

20:22

then after you do that, do you

20:26

mind if I write this up? And just

20:28

so that you can have a sense of

20:30

it. So you're going to do it through

20:32

them. And then you want him to show

20:34

it to the CEO. Even

20:37

though you have a direct relationship with the CEO,

20:39

you don't want to go to the CEO with

20:41

this because you want to model correct.

20:45

It's a beautiful behavior to reinforce correct

20:47

behavior. Yeah. And I think, for

20:50

instance, I think you're circling and it's definitely

20:53

a very strong pattern in the work that we

20:55

do. Is it for sure in a

20:57

small professional service firm like

21:00

this, no one has thought

21:02

about this for you. These

21:04

are environments where we have

21:06

to provide the structure, momentum,

21:08

clarity. And so,

21:10

and this, this is the cleanest, most

21:13

direct, most empowering way to do it

21:15

is to go in and start the

21:17

conversation. At the moment you feel like

21:20

you have the, you know,

21:23

social and professional equity to spend, to

21:25

spend it in this way and then

21:27

reinforce the kind of appropriate lines

21:30

of behavior here is an

21:32

awesome opportunity. And

21:34

before you go, I just want to say it's not the

21:37

add on at the end of an

21:39

agenda. It's not, it's its own meeting.

21:41

It's for its own stated purpose because

21:43

I want both of you to

21:46

get used to the fact that you

21:48

have needs. You don't just solve problems,

21:51

but you are a

21:54

problem. I don't mean it in the

21:56

negative way, but you too need investment.

21:58

You're investing in everything else. That's

22:00

where I really want to stress that that

22:02

formality and then I also really want you

22:04

to verbally Be able to

22:07

summarize it say if I have it right

22:09

and then be able to write it up

22:11

so that they can edit it I just

22:13

want to underscore that beautiful observation,

22:15

which is that when you are in that role

22:17

as a fixer in A

22:19

family in an organization on a

22:21

team The signaling

22:24

can be to other members of

22:26

the team that you're you're all

22:28

set in terms of needs and

22:30

so it's Your

22:33

own needs may not be particularly visible to

22:35

you if you're in that posture and they're

22:37

definitely not visible to the people around you

22:40

No, I love it and a lot of

22:43

what you've been Telling

22:45

me it makes a lot of like

22:47

it makes sense a hundred percent that

22:49

I'm always fixing someone's problems But I'm

22:51

not Being

22:53

aware of what are my problems,

22:56

but not in a negative Way,

22:59

it's just like okay what

23:01

I need what needs to be addressed for

23:03

me. Yeah Yeah,

23:06

let's go to problem two. Okay.

23:09

I I want to liberate

23:11

you from Feeling

23:13

responsible for their relationship. And

23:16

so here's an idea and I'm interested in what both of you think

23:18

about it in your

23:20

Conversation with your CEO. I

23:23

almost want you to say great Okay,

23:26

whatever it is, whatever his ideas

23:28

whatever your your answers. Yes He's

23:31

the CEO of the company your job is not

23:33

to get him to behave better You don't have

23:35

that kind of either formal or

23:37

informal authority to change the way he's

23:40

interacting with your

23:42

boss But that so

23:45

that the tension is gets removed from those

23:47

conversations And then you continue to walk right

23:49

into your boss's office and say, okay now

23:52

let's decide together Is this what I should be working

23:54

on like what should

23:56

be my priority? This is now

23:58

your boss's problem it makes sense of

24:01

it all. And then at some point,

24:03

he's gonna have to figure out how to go

24:05

to his boss and interrupt this

24:07

flow of conversation, but that's not your problem

24:09

in the meantime. And

24:12

I wanna- More is it anything you have to apologize

24:14

for? And

24:16

I think given your like talent

24:18

and competence, which is like radiating

24:20

from the screen, I

24:22

think the risk of you damaging your potential

24:27

or status

24:30

or opportunity in this environment is super low. All

24:34

right, what's everybody's reaction to this idea? I'll let you go

24:37

first. Yeah,

24:40

it's amazing like just to hear

24:43

that, yeah. And stop

24:45

saying, I'm sorry, to say, okay,

24:47

I'll do it. Yeah, okay, whatever.

24:49

But then I pass the problem

24:52

to my boss. It's

24:54

not my problem anymore. And not trying

24:56

to fix the way they communicate or

24:58

not. It's, okay, I was asked to

25:00

do this. I'm telling you

25:02

where it should be in

25:04

my list of priorities. Yeah,

25:07

you're my boss. Tell me, like, do you

25:09

want me to put this to the top of the list? Number

25:11

two, number three, like this is fundamentally his

25:14

problem, not your problem. Like that

25:16

there's another agenda item that is

25:18

now on your collective list. And then if

25:21

he ever expresses displeasure at

25:24

the letter is being addressed to you,

25:26

be like, oh, I know who you should talk

25:29

to about that. Yeah, it's not

25:31

me. It's not you. It's

25:33

not me. Yeah, so I think having the clarity

25:35

in your mind that the dysfunction is in their

25:37

relationship. It's

25:40

not in your relationship. But the

25:42

follow up is that dysfunction is not your responsibility.

25:45

And it's not your responsibility. Yeah, I love it.

25:48

I really love that. And

25:50

I think that's a really good idea. You

25:54

guys being able to tell me about, make me

25:56

aware of this. You think it's

25:58

just a workplace. situation

26:01

that you're stuck in the

26:03

middle between two powerful men but at the

26:06

end of the day it's not it's something that

26:08

they need to fix. Awesome.

26:11

Did we achieve our objective, Caitlin?

26:14

Yes, a hundred percent.

26:16

I really appreciate your

26:18

time, your advice and

26:22

everything. It makes now a

26:25

lot of sense, like

26:27

more sense of how to

26:29

approach this kind of situation. Tell us

26:32

and the listeners what's

26:34

your plan? My plan

26:36

is to schedule ACP

26:38

meeting with my boss. Yeah. And

26:41

what's on the agenda?

26:43

The agenda is how

26:45

I am very ambitious in

26:48

how I can get to the next level

26:51

and then start talking about what's the

26:53

plan for me. Yeah.

26:56

Awesome. Caitlin, thank you

26:58

so much. It was such a joy to have

27:00

you on the show and I think this is

27:02

a problem that's really gonna resonate with listeners. No,

27:04

thank you both for having me today and for

27:07

giving me all this amazing advice. Please

27:11

keep us updated on how it goes. Yeah, let us

27:13

know how it goes. This

27:30

show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Around

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SoundRise. So

29:57

friends, you know I love... organizations.

30:00

I love small organizations. One

30:03

of the things that you often give up is real

30:07

structure and rigor around advancement.

30:11

And that

30:13

can create tension, particularly if

30:16

you're younger, particularly if you're

30:19

a woman, if you

30:21

identify as an out-group

30:24

versus the in-group running the organization

30:26

in some way. And

30:28

so finding your way

30:30

into that conversation can have

30:34

a huge impact in

30:36

my experience as a coach. It

30:38

can take a year off

30:41

the promotion timeline. And

30:43

what I find is that

30:46

particularly for fixers, we fix

30:48

problems. But that

30:50

means we have to present ourselves as a problem. Otherwise,

30:54

nobody fixes it. So

30:56

we only address, like

30:58

it's rare in these

31:00

small scrappy organizations that

31:02

they're fixing non-problems. And

31:06

so- That they're getting

31:08

out of head and thinking

31:10

about a multi-year career trajectory.

31:12

There's always something else on

31:15

the to-do list. So we have to

31:17

have the audacity to

31:22

put ourselves on the to-do list. And

31:24

that's hard for people who are used

31:26

to taking care of other things and

31:28

taking care of others. I

31:31

feel like we made a lot of progress in this

31:33

conversation and I'm very grateful to Caitlin for the- Yeah.

31:36

She just gave it to us. Thanks,

31:39

Caitlin. You saved me on therapy

31:42

for this week. Thanks

31:48

for listening, everyone. We want to

31:50

hear from you too. If you have a

31:53

work problem you're feeling stuck on, send us

31:55

a message. Email us at fixable at head.com.

31:58

Call us at P346- That's

32:00

two three four three four nine two

32:02

two five three and now you can

32:04

even shoot us a text there too We

32:07

would love to hear from you And

32:09

we promise one of us will identify with your problem Fixable

32:27

is brought to you by the TED

32:29

audio collective It's hosted by me and

32:31

Morris and me Francis Our

32:34

team includes Isabelle Carter on sounds

32:36

like a hardo Joey Fishground and

32:39

ban-ban Chang Michelle Quint Corey Haejum

32:42

Alejandra Salazar and Roxanne high

32:44

lash This episode was mixed

32:46

by Louie at story yard If

32:49

you're enjoying the show make sure to subscribe

32:51

wherever you get your podcasts and maybe share

32:53

this episode with a friend Who could use

32:55

help to speak up for themselves? And

32:58

one more thing if you're listening to us

33:00

on Spotify We have a question for

33:02

you check out the episode description to see what it

33:04

is and weigh in