Podcast Summary: Squiggly Careers #474

"Squiggly Short: How to Increase Your Impact by Understanding Your Boss"

Hosts: Sarah Ellis (A) & Helen Tupper (B)
Release Date: April 10, 2025
Episode Length: ~8 minutes

Episode Overview

This "Squiggly Short" episode delivers a focused, actionable summary on why understanding your manager is crucial for improving your impact at work. Sarah and Helen outline a practical, four-week approach designed to help listeners gain deeper insights into their bosses, become more effective in their roles, and ultimately foster better team dynamics. The tone is informal, supportive, and sprinkled with humor, offering listeners both strategic perspectives and tactical tips.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Focus on Understanding Your Manager? (00:21)

• Managers significantly influence employee development and engagement.
• Many relationships default to a "parent-child" dynamic, where employees seek direction and approval, but there's greater benefit in building peer-like rapport.
• The aim is not to become best friends, but to better understand what’s important to your manager and use that knowledge for mutual benefit.

Quote:

"Very often our relationships are defined by what gets called the parent-child dynamic... but what we really want to do is use insight so that we can almost talk to them a bit more like peers."
—Helen (00:24)

2. Four-Week Deep Dive: A Practical Guide

Week 1: Channel Your Inner Anthropologist (01:06)

• Observe your manager’s behaviors as an objective outsider: What questions do they ask? When do they show energy or frustration?
• Notice patterns, e.g., some ask “why?” a lot or “how?” and “what?” questions.
• Keep brief notes on observable behavior—but don't be overly intense.

Quote:

"We're just starting with that awareness... you might want to jot a few things down so you remember what you're learning, without looking sort of too intense."
—Sarah (01:45)

Week 2: Play Detective—Profile Your Manager (02:29)

• Gather data from communications: emails, messages, voice notes.
• If available, reference personality assessments (e.g., Strengths Finder, Myers-Briggs).
• Use AI tools (e.g., Copilot, ChatGPT in a closed environment) to generate a profile:
  • Ask AI for three words describing your manager.
  • Request recommendations for how to interact with them.
• Remember: This process supplements, not replaces, your own insights.

Quote:

"We don't want to use this to sort of box somebody in... it is just additive for the insight that you're accumulating."
—Helen (03:12)

• Memorable Moment: Helen ran Sarah’s communications through an AI profiler without telling her for “service of Squiggly!”

Week 3: Guess What—Priorities and Problems (03:34)

• Write down your manager's top three priorities and top three problems for the next month or quarter.
• This exercise helps you “walk in your manager’s shoes” and validate your assumptions by checking them directly with your manager, even if they’re wrong.

Quote:

"Better to know than to not know... from this process you will learn something."
—Sarah (04:28)

Week 4: Team Exercise—Safety in Numbers (05:16)

• Transition insights into team-based activities; learn together.
• Use tools (e.g., team values exercises, 16 Personalities, "More About Me" from Amazing If) for group learning.
• Indirectly uncover what’s important to your manager as they participate alongside the whole team.

3. Turning Awareness into Action (06:02)

• Use new insights to adapt:
  • One-to-one meeting preparation or structure.
  • Communication style (e.g., concise vs. detailed emails).
  • Project engagement—explicitly ask what the manager needs, rather than guess.
• Recognize keywords your manager uses and values in their work.
• Adjust, but don’t lose your own authentic style.

Quote:

"You never want to change who you are too much, so it feels uncomfortable. But again, this is all sort of being smart in terms of you doing your job better."
—Sarah (06:54)

• Memorable Moment: The hosts joke about their key words and behaviors—Helen says, "The opposite of my keywords would be slow, stop. You'd probably see me twitching" (06:36).

• Practical example: If your manager needs project updates for the board, ask if weekly Thursday bullet points would help.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the parent-child dynamic in manager relationships:
  "We can fall into a bit of a pattern ... of talking to our managers like they're our parents."
  —Helen (00:25)

• On awareness vs. action:
  "We always want to turn awareness into action."
  —Sarah (06:02)

• On adapting email styles:
  "If you naturally send really long emails, but your manager is someone who sends three bullet points in return, it might be smart to adapt enough."
  —Sarah (06:51)

• Fun exchange:
  "That's when your eyes might go back in your hands again."
  —Sarah jokes about Helen's visible frustration signs (06:40).

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:21: Why understanding managers matters; parent-child dynamics.
• 01:06: Start of four-week deep-dive framework.
• 02:29: Using profiling to better understand your manager.
• 03:34: Testing your assumptions about your boss.
• 05:16: Transitioning to team learning/activities.
• 06:02: Turning insight into specific actions.
• 06:36: Adapting your communication and engagement.
• 07:44: Wrap-up and further resources.

Final Thoughts

Sarah and Helen distil practical methods into accessible weekly steps, using stories and humor to make their advice memorable and actionable. The overall message: A little proactive curiosity and adaptation can transform your relationship with your manager—and your day-to-day impact at work.

For more in-depth actions, listeners are encouraged to check out the episode’s Pod Sheet or full-length discussion.