Episode 6: Conversations That Matter - Anna Wildman, Oil In The Engine

Welcome back to our Conversations that Matter podcast series. Throughout this series, you'll hear the opinions and experiences of individuals who deeply believe in the power of conversation. Each episode will be unique, some stories are personal, some and professional, but all are incredibly insightful. 

We are thrilled to welcome our next guest, Anna Wildman, Director of Oil in the Engine. Oil in the Engine provides bespoke skill-building workshops and 1-2-1 coaching to help HR and learning development professionals around the world. 

Anna's career spans from 10 years in The Royal Navy, to becoming the Global Director for Learning and Development at KPMG. She is also the author of the brilliantly practical guide, ‘NOW You're Talking! The manager's complete handbook to leading great conversations at work - even the tough ones'. 

In this episode, we hear more about Anna's phenomenal career, what led her to write her successful book, and the importance of empowering managers to drive effective 1:1 conversations to boost the performance and development of their people. 

Join us on social to keep up with all things OpenBlend.

Follow us on LinkedIn, where you can connect with our Founder & CEO Anna, and our Chief Revenue Officer, Jordan. Have you got a question for us that you'd like answered? Email hello@openblend.com today.

#OpenBlend

Transcript

[00:00:00] Anna Rasmussen: Hello and a very warm welcome to another episode of Conversations That Matter. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Anna Wildman, author of Powering Performance, Now You're Talking, a book that actually connected Anna and I about 12 months ago now and has actually Resulted in us collaborating to create a new module in Open Blend called Lightbulb, but we'll come on to talk about that a bit later.

[00:00:27] Anna Rasmussen: So Anna, thank you so much for joining us today. Should, do you want to, should we kick off with you introducing yourself a bit about your background and, and, uh, yeah, sort of a synopsis on how you've got to where you are today? 

[00:00:42] Anna Wildman: I'd be delighted. Thank you. Um, so I ran away to sea age 19. I, you know, lived with many brothers on a farm and that was what I always wanted to do and spent 10 years in the Royal Navy. The jobs I had varied, but were mostly around operations. I was an air traffic control support. I was a boot camp instructor, and I worked in Hong Kong on the intelligence staff. Um, so lots of varied jobs, and I think probably if I had to take away from being in the Navy, it was that conversations around the whole person matter. you just can't treat someone as a worker at work, and so that was really great basis for me. I then moved on to Cafe Pacific Airways and spent a couple of years on doing performance management. They were introducing a new performance management system then, and that was my first global experience in looking at the different cultures and how those work in conversations with managers. I then went on to eventually, after a couple of consulting roles, to work with KPMG initially in China, doing their leadership skills development.

[00:01:58] Anna Wildman: And then for KPMG International, which covered, just at that time, 144, 000 people over 143 different countries, responsible for their leadership and skills development side of the training capabilities that they were producing, and that was just a fantastic experience for me. 

[00:02:20] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah, I bet it was.

[00:02:22] Anna Wildman: In 2012, that role transitioned off to Canada and I set up my own company here in the UK, which is where you find me now, and I work with lots of different companies helping to embed these skills into organisations, at all levels within the organisation. 

[00:02:40] Anna Rasmussen: When you say these skills, what would you say your sweet spot is in. 

[00:02:46] Anna Wildman: Sorry, my sweet spot is in the face-to-face conversations that managers have with their staff, this is the main thrust of what we do and it is about being able to encourage managers to develop the skills and a framework to guide them through each of the conversations they need to have with their people, and those conversations just make such a difference to both the motivation of their teams, but also the results. 

[00:03:17] Anna Rasmussen: Fantastic. You can see when we talk about it now, when we're 12 months down the line of knowing each other, but, just for the listener, I'm an avid reader of business books and Anna's book, ‘Powering performance: Now you're talking’ jumped out at me on Amazon, and so I ordered it, because it was obviously very aligned with OpenBlend and our mission to transform one to ones. I didn’t read very much of Anna's book and realised that I needed this woman in my life. So I found out how to contact her, we had a chat, I think, and pretty much straight away you were like, Oh, hang on a minute, I need you in my life too, and actually realised that what we have is very complimentary. Where you're coming from the skill side, I'm coming from the platform framework side, but both with this kind of desire to support and upskill managers to be able to have really effective one-to-one conversations.

[00:04:16] Anna Rasmussen: We just come at it from a very different angle. So, it was absolutely a meeting of the minds at that point. So if we could move on to the book, could you give us a brief synopsis of the book? 

[00:04:30] Anna Wildman: Um, so 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 the relationship and goal setting, feedback, coaching, development, planning, all the way through to year end reviews. If your organisation has year ends, certainly progress reviews, everybody does and compensation conversations. And that's the first half.

[00:05:02] Anna Wildman: And the second half follows 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.

[00:05:23] Anna Wildman: So the book is one of two halves, and each of them guides the manager through with a set of steps to be able to navigate that conversation and also guide them with the sorts of words that you can use or adapt to use that have been shown to work. 

[00:05:42] Anna Rasmussen: Fantastic, so it takes you from the sort of routine conversations, just the everyday catch up one to one check in conversations, onto the tougher conversations as well and everything in between, and I think you touched on this briefly, when you were introducing your background, but was there any sort of key moments throughout your career that inspired you to write a book? 

[00:06:08] Anna Wildman: Um, my fascination with these conversations started probably was when I was newly in the Navy and my Boss sat down with me and said, Anna doesn't take, you just don't take criticism easily, do you? And I thought, Oh my gosh, no. I mean, I didn't know how to answer her at the time because I could either argue with her or I could agree with her, but either way the point was made. And I thought, why is that? Why do we find these conversations really difficult? Because I was keen to grow and develop. 

[00:06:45] Anna Wildman: A second time that really stuck out in my mind was when I was actually facilitating a program in Hong Kong for one of the government departments there, and we were talking about how to develop feedback skills and we were practicing and someone just turned around to me and she quite rightly said, I can't do it, you do it. You show me. And I think being put in that situation really forces you to understand what it's like to approach a conversation without any route to navigate it by. Where do I start? Where do I go? And so on. And I thought, I, we need a set of steps. We need to say, where do you begin? Where do you go on to and, and how do you close it out? And that's what led to my developing the Cedar feedback steps, uh, Cedar, like a, tree seeder and also to eventually writing the book. 

[00:07:38] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah, fantastic, so you obviously always had this sort of a desire to support managers, with that, but it's interesting actually that, your first instance with this is when you're on the receiving end of it. So did you sit there at that point and look at your manager and think, I wish that she was navigating this conversation better? Or what was it about that particular circumstance that triggered that in your mind? 

[00:08:07] Anna Wildman: I had no idea at that time that there might be a better way. We're not taught that there is a way to approach it, and so I, just assumed this was what they were all like, and it was a great experience. I always try and put myself in the receiver's shoes to say what works and feedback has changed phenomenally with that sort of input from people because people are saying, you know, I don't want it to be my way or the highway. I want involvement. I want some sort of control over my own conversations. This is not something you do to me, it is a shared conversation where we explore my performance and help me move it forward. And that's a big mindset shift for most managers. 

[00:09:02] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah. Okay, great. So how, so there's so many chapters that you could have backed in the book. You've got nine chapters in the book. How did you come up with the nine? How did you decide on the nine? 

[00:09:17] Anna Wildman: Yes, the initial nine were actually relatively easy because they're all about the conversations that organisations usually have, like goal setting, like feedback, coaching, development, planning. So those were straightforward. But the question about which tough conversations to include was, it was an interesting one for me, and that came from experience. I've trained thousands of managers around the world. I worked in 40 countries, so I've really tried to pick up what works for all of them, not just one culture against another, and these are the ones that stood out. They are, you know, the, the difficult feedback, the trouble with not being able to give promotion when you want to, uh, how hard it is to managed conflict between two team members, even all the way through to how do you tell someone they have a personal hygiene problem, which is a favorite.

[00:10:14] Anna Rasmussen: Um, so I love that. So it comes from experience in a training room, listening to what people need, and it's all captured in this book. Fantastic. So, the book has got a very, very useful, one page summary at the end of each chapter in the book. How did you decide what goes into that one pager? I, love reading everything, but if there is that one-pager there, I will quite often, if I'm short of time, jump to that one-pager and have a look through.How did you decipher and commit to what you were going to take out of the chapter to put into the one-pager? 

[00:10:56] Anna Wildman: Endless research probably is the answer to that. But, in terms of experience, it's saying we are in the generation of too long didn't read and you do need the essence of what the chapter actually covers.

[00:11:10] Anna Wildman: So we're really looking, and I was, you know, developing those one pages based on here's the framework, here's the set of steps down one side, and here's a couple of examples in each case of things that you might ask or things that you might say that help take that step forward. And they act as initial triggers for managers to be able to pick up immediately and run a conversation with confidence immediately.

[00:11:36] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah, I mean, it works. I mean, anyone listening to this, I highly recommend you buy Anna's book because it is so logical. It takes you on a journey. It covers all the conversations that you need to cover, but gives you those practical tips as well. So I think it's fantastically well written and I think it actually does scream that it comes from a place of experience and research and sort of hands-on.

[00:11:59] Anna Rasmussen: [00:12:00] So thank you so much for sharing all of that. What I'd like to do is move on to kind of a bit more sort of mindset piece really. So OpenBlend, as I mentioned earlier, our mission is to transform one to ones. We work with a lot of organisations. We understand the problems and the pain points that they're trying to solve, and a big part of that is, you know, Daunted managers or drowning managers. And I think actually today, you know, I believe that managers are the single, biggest challenge that organisations have today. I mean, they're stretched left, right and center their individual contributors, as well as being responsible for managing people.

[00:12:43] Anna Rasmussen: I think people are demanding. Um, and life is so much more complicated for everybody that managers are having to get the best out of people remotely face to face, um, across different time zones, you know all of this has its benefits, but I think it puts a huge amount of pressure on managers. So I'd like to kind of come on to the manager, specifically. So, I mean, what can businesses do to help this drowning, daunted manager? Because. you know, what businesses want are highly effective, highly efficient managers. What can they do? What can businesses do to help these managers? 

[00:13:32] Anna Wildman: It's such a problem, isn't it? And yet, the irony of this is that Gallup research shows that managers create 70 percent of the engagement, at least 70 percent of the engagement in their teams. So this is such a crucial. touch point. And, the single biggest thing that they can do to help managers is give them skills, invest in them so that they 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.

[00:14:09] Anna Wildman: They 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, um, organisations can, easily help managers with is the is the upskilling.

[00:14:37] Anna Rasmussen: So we've spoken quite a lot about, you know, the reason I think we've got a meeting of the minds, not only are we coming from the same place, but we come from the same place and have a complimentary solution. So we've been talking recently, a lot about the enhanced return on investment that skills training has when coupled with A tool like OpenBlend, so a tool that enables the manager to take all of the skills that they've learned, whether it be online in a classroom for a day in a bite-sized chunk, however, it might be, and actually use a framework to use it in the moment, um, whereas on the other side of that is the return on investment that people will get from using OpenBlend with the skills piece added to that as well. So you're kind of supporting managers from two sides. Um, so I don't know, do you want to sort of share some of your thoughts on the reliance that you think maybe a skills training and a platform to support one to ones might have?

[00:15:46] Anna Wildman: Oh they're absolutely crucial because you need to, you need to have a platform that guides those conversations. You need to know when to have them and be supported with a system that is straightforward and easy to use. And then building in those skills in the process in the moment makes it so easy to say, ah, I'll just remind myself just in time learning, what we need to cover and how I might approach this, and that marriage is perfect. It's the way really all HR platforms really need to be built, but fantastic to have worked with this on OpenBlend. 

[00:16:24] Anna Rasmussen: Um, so part of our approach with lightbulb is to acknowledge that it takes two people to have a very effective one-to-one conversation, so both the manager and the employee. Now obviously we've reflected that in the lightbulb content that we have in the platform. So we have 12 guides, six of which are aimed towards the manager, and six of which are aimed towards the employee. Why do you think, Anna, that it is so important to have both sides of the conversation represented? 

[00:16:59] Anna Wildman: 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 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, uh, which is not only transparent, And I understand what conversations I'm going to be having and my role in those, but it increases my personal accountability.

[00:17:35] Anna Wildman: 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, and just a perfect approach. 

[00:18:01] Anna Rasmussen: I think it's invaluable, as an employee when you know you're going to have a one-to-one with your manager around, you know, maybe it's just a general catch-up with touching on a number of different points that, um, and this is obviously a huge part of OpenBlend where we enable both parties to go in and prepare for their one-to-one.

[00:18:21] Anna Rasmussen: So choosing the focus of the one-to-one, what the objective of that one-to-one is, Creating agenda items, and then being served content that is relevant to those agenda items is, is kind of gold. Um, and there's a few bits that obviously all of the lightbulb content is written and narrated by Anna.

[00:18:43] Anna Rasmussen: And it, it, those little nuggets of information, the one that really stands out for me is around wellbeing. So, uh, we have a coaching guide on wellbeing for the employee and understanding boundaries. I think it's so important because some people, wellbeing doesn't have to be a really in depth conversation.

[00:19:00] Anna Rasmussen: It can just be a check-in just to make sure that, uh, You know the employee is got everything they need, they feel confident enough. They're happy. They're not too stressed about a particular project or whatever it might be. So, but the piece of content around boundary setting and understanding that your manager, so receiving this as an employee, that your manager has their own workload.They have a number of different people that they're supporting and it's not all about you. Um, so it's going into that meeting. understanding that they're not there as your sort of personal lean on and that you've got to take accountability for, you know, raising it in the right way and understanding that they're a human being.

[00:19:45] Anna Rasmussen: I just think it was really powerful. And that's just one snippet. I mean, there's so many hours worth of content, um, along the same lines, but it's just being reminded of that before you go into a one-to-one, I think is hugely important. As you said, putting that accountability back on the employee.

[00:20:01] Anna Wildman: Boundaries are really important, both for the manager to understand where they can and cannot go, what's the limit of the support that they're able to offer, but also for the team member who knows where the manager can help them, where they may need to go beyond, but of course it applies across all conversations.

[00:20:20] Anna Wildman: It's hugely important in wellbeing, but also important in managing my own performance because it really helps team members take more responsibility to understand where they're responsible for their own performance and they don't just delegate upwards to the manager. And those conversations across all of the different skills are so valuable to both sides.

[00:20:42] Anna Wildman: They just create structure, they create clarity, they help each of them know how far they can go and where to go further. 

[00:20:52] Anna Rasmussen: Yeah, I'm particularly proud of the fact that we've got content in there for both the manager and the employee. If we're, if we're going to achieve our mission of transforming one to ones, you have to support both parties in that.

[00:21:04] Anna Rasmussen: So thank you so much for working alongside us to create that content. Okay, so. Well, I think that kind of brings us to the end of our chat. Anyway, thank you so much for taking us through, sort of your, your background and you know, the fact that you've captured all of your experience and knowledge and pearls of wisdom into one book. I think everybody's very lucky to be able to buy that book and publish it. And tap into everything that you have learned along your journey, which is fantastic. Um, what's next for you? 

[00:21:35] Anna Wildman: Helping to spread the word that these skills are doable and we're developing leaders guides so that HR and learning and development teams can bring these skills in-house.

[00:21:46] Anna Wildman: We need to scale up to let people know that there are cedar feedback steps that work for feedback conversations and be able to get these skills out there. They are doable. They'll save managers a lot of stress and anxiety and that getting that message out. We want no manager to be unsupported. That's our unofficial mantra. 

[00:22:09] Anna Rasmussen: I love it. And we're, we're wholeheartedly supporting you all, all the way. So I know we obviously we collaborated on lightbulb, but, um, you know, it's your independent business and our independent business. It's fantastic to be aligned and be connected and working with you, Anna.

[00:22:24] Anna Rasmussen: So thank you so much for your time again today. So again, for those of you listening that want to buy Anna's book, Powering Performance. Now You're Talking, available on Amazon. Um, thank you so much for being with us today, Anna. 

[00:22:40] Anna Wildman: Super. Lovely. Thanks, Anna.