Managing Made Simple is a weekly leadership and management podcast for people managers, business owners, and founders who want to lead high-performing teams without falling back into the work themselves.
Each week, host Lia Garvin- 3x bestselling author and former team operations leader at Google, Apple, and Microsoft- breaks down the real, everyday challenges of leading teams, giving feedback, delegating, creating team accountability, high performing culture, retention, and more with performance with practical strategies you can implement immediately. Lia’s work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and Fortune.
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You know the feeling. Their name pops up on your calendar and your stomach drops just a little.
They are not low performers. They are actually delivering. But something about the dynamic makes leading them harder than it needs to be.
In this episode of Real Talk: Leading Small Teams, we break down three common archetypes that trigger leaders and how to handle each one without avoiding hard conversations.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why “Praise-Seeking Polly” may not actually feel recognized, even when you think you are praising them
What “Mindy the Mope” might be signaling about role fit and strengths alignment
Why “Defensive Dan” reacts to feedback and how to lower defensiveness without walking on eggshells
How to anchor feedback in shared expectations so high performers stay coachable
If you have someone on your team who makes you want to cancel your one-on-ones but is technically doing a good job, this episode will help you shift from frustration to strategy.
Download my FREE guide to making hard conversations with your team easier at liagarvin.com/convo
Looking for support for yourself of your team? I've got you covered. Explore manager training, leaders keynotes & offsites, and 1:1 advisory, or my 90-Day-COO program for business owners who want simple systems that actually work.
I transform teams from cost centers to profit centers with practical tools and research-backed strategies that make managing EASIER.
Get all the details at: www.liagarvin.com Contact: liagarvin.com/contact Email: hello@liagarvin.com
Thing about recognition and the thing about praise and appreciation is it only lands for people if it's in the language that they receive it in. It's literally like love languages. If someone's love language or appreciation language is thank yous, and yours is like money, gifts, things like that, they actually may not realize they even were recognized or appreciate the recognition. Welcome to Leading Small Teams, a real talk podcast tackling the ins and outs of leading teams in the modern workplace. I'm Leah Garvin, your host, with a decade of experience driving team operations in companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, bringing you insider strategies to make you a more confident and effective leader. From delegating to feedback to avoiding micromanaging and more, this podcast gives you the tools to empower your team, scale yourself as a leader, and grow your business. Whether you are managing a team of one or one hundred, everyone is welcome to hang out with leading small teams. You know those employees that just when you see their email come through, you're like, ugh, or they walk through the door and you realize, yeah, today's gonna be harder than it needs to be. You just kind of feel it. The vibe's off, they they kind of, you know, it's gonna be something new, and you just kind of dread dealing with it. Well, we've all been there, we've all had these. And I want to talk about three archetypes or kinds of people that we can have on our teams. Some of these characteristics and and maybe why they're triggering us as leaders so that we feel like more equipped to deal with it. Because there's all there's not you're not gonna always love every single one of our team members. And if they're actually adding value and doing their job well, then it's there's no performance issues. So we want to be able to kind of deal with it and not like want a drag coming to work. So let's talk about it. Once we get on the table, you'll see we've all been there, we've all had the same folks, and there's definitely ways we can deal with it. So our first archetype is praise seeking Polly. Praise-seeking Polly always wants to know they did a good job. They, when they have get out of a meeting, they want a high five. When it's the end of a long week, they want to say, like, great job, everyone. When obviously, when a big milestone happens, they they want something there. They definitely want to get paid more often. Praise-seeking Polly is the person that every time you have a one-on-one, you know they're gonna ask about the raise, their promotion. You know, they're gonna say, Hey, um, you know, just landed that great project. I wanted to kind of talk about. And you start dreading having meetings with Praise Seeking Polly because there's gonna be one more thing they're asking you for. And you're thinking, like, can we just let it sit for a minute? The project launched five minutes ago. Like, we're already talking about our raise. Praise seeking Polly might even want money before the project starts. Praise seeking poly might say, Hey, we're about to go in this really busy season, or I'm gonna take on this really hard project. Like, I feel like I should be compensated more to actually take that on. And you're thinking, What? That's not how money works. You don't get money in advance. This isn't a check cashing company, this is a place of business. Okay. So praise-seeking poly. Now, why does this irk us? Well, a lot of reasons. I think for me, the praise-seeking piece, now I'm a I'm definitely a praise seeker in some ways myself, certainly was in the corporate world. And I think what bugs me though, about like as the employer side is the person that needs it constantly. Like you just, it's not ever good enough. When you give something nice or say thank you, or take the team out to dinner, or you do something, like it feels like we're always going to be having to do more. They need that constant validation. And as a leader, that makes you feel like, gosh, like I'm always being watched if I've hit this, you know, magical moment where you feel satisfied with the praise. Right. I think for us, it can feel this level of like, yeah, like when is it just like like just chill or it's it's enough. Now, when praise-seeking Polly becomes the person that's always asking for the promotion and the bonus, you literally do want to avoid talking to them because it's like, why are we, why are we doing this again? I've already spelled it out, or like just like just chill, just wait. So it can put you feeling a lot of pressure and feeling on edge in that sense. Now, again, I mentioned, you know, I I feel like I was on the other side of this at certain times in my corporate career. And when I was wanting someone to say good job, or wanting to know when that next, you know, raise promotion was, it was really about feeling like I didn't know where I stood or I didn't know if I was doing a good job, or I wanted to make sure, like, hey, are we where we calibrated with this manager? So I think, you know, having a little bit of empathy for that. I think we can say, okay, well, this person they want some clarity, but I am responding because I'm feeling like there's a mismatch here. Now, the thing about recognition and the thing about praise and appreciation is it only lands for people if it's in the language that they receive it in. It's it's literally like love languages. If someone's love language or appreciation language is thank yous and yours is like money, gifts, things like that, and you give another, you give a monetary bonus, but you don't give this big thank you moment, they actually may not realize they even were recognized or appreciate the recognition because there was a disconnect there. And this can be one of the most frustrating things as a leader is like you are giving what you see as praise and recognition all the time. And the person's like, no, it just like I feel unappreciated. And you're like, literally, what the heck? I can't do anything more for you. So when we're running into this praise-seeking situation, it's really important to reevaluate, hey, am I understanding actually the way in which I this person feels recognized? And that's why a lot of the work I do is I do workshops with teams on talking about our feedback styles, the way that we want, we want recognition, feedback, constructive feedback, so that we actually have a shared language here. And without that, that's the kind of thing that will happen, is you'll see Praise Seeking Polly and be like, no, and they're seeing you and they're like, no, that's ever good enough. And you literally can't meet in the middle. That is critical work to do. And having those conversations where you can say, oh, here's where we have the disconnect, that is vital. And that's why literally feedback is one of the things I talk about most, because recognition is a piece of that. And teams really need to have that shared language. If you're anything like me, you've had those nights where you wake up at three in the morning wondering, gosh, are people working on the right things? Or what's the status of that project? And obviously you can't email folks at that time, but the tools you're using, ClickUp or Asana or Slack, it's just too detailed. You need a bird's eye view. Enter the snippets template. At the end of each week, your team member fills out the highlights from the week, any places they're stuck, and the top parties for next week. So you're never wondering: are folks working on the right things? Are there things that they haven't brought up that really should be on my radar? And most importantly, what wins can we celebrate as a team? Grab your copy at Leagarmer.com slash snippets. Now, when praise ticking Polly, it's all about the next promotion. Oh gosh, I remember I had a team member. And yeah, every one-on-one, every Monday at 2.30 p.m., I had to have a conversation with her about when is my next promotion? I'm ready for my promotion. I want to talk about it. And it was like, I, yeah, I wanted to cancel the one-on-ones and not have these conversations anymore. It was like literally ingrained in my head that it was Monday at 2 30. But the challenge here was the person really didn't realize what was their career path and how are they going to get to the next step. And I didn't realize the time, but that's why I help business owners now and team leaders and founders map out the paths for their team members and what it looks like to get there and how long it is between roles and levels so that you don't have to have this conversation every 25 minutes. All right. So praise seeking poly, there's a lot we can do about that. We're triggered because it feels like nothing's ever good enough, but we can sort that out. Now, what about Mindy the mope? Every time Mindy shows up to work, it's like, yeah, I'm fine. Project goes well, everyone's excited. Yeah, no, that was good. And you just feel like, ugh, why is it so like they're not excited or anything? They don't really have goals or ambitions that you're seeing come through. They do get their job done. Okay, so none of these folks are like low performers. We're talking about this is like people you're just gonna be dealing with. And Mindy the Mope is you just feel like I want more like joy and enthusiasm at work. Sorry. I just want to like not feel so blah. So Mindy the Mope is triggering you because you feel like like you always have to be uplifting everything and being like, is this wrong? Is this wrong? And you're feeling like you're putting on like a dog and pony show. So Mindy the Mope, when that's being triggered, I think some of that is letting letting it go and not feeling like you know, you have to entertain this person. But also it's a pretty big sign that there could be a mismatch between, you know, someone's strengths and skills and the work they're doing. Now, they're hired to do a certain job. So if they're not loving it, that really is kind of on them. But like I think it's is it a role fit, right? That's a different question. But also seeing, like, hey, is there more that I can do to get to know this person and their interests and their superpowers, or kind of take a step back and say, well, the role has evolved. I know they really like this. How can I better match them to that? And like this, this role mapping, like this is a critical thing to be doing or to get someone to help you do if you aren't really sure how to approach that. Because when you find someone just kind of like, I'm doing the job fine, but you actually click it into like they're doing the work that they love and they were designed for, the productivity is exponential, especially if they're doing fine at something they don't love. Like when you find that right fit, oh my gosh, open the freaking floodgates. So we really want to deal with this one. And again, re-re kind of lining up. And I talk about this in the New Manager playbook in the book, lining someone up to their strengths is gonna be key for this. I actually have an exercise for that in the book. I think, you know, when we are able to identify some of those things, we we are not required to change a person's whole job because they decide they're bored with it. Different conversation. And that brings us to a conversation you might have with defensive Dan, which is whenever you give feedback, they're defensive. They're right, you're wrong, they're right, the team members are wrong, they did it, it's not their fault. Finger pointing, blame, blame, blame. Now, you might be hearing this, and you're like, isn't that a low performer? Well, I think a lot of folks can actually do a good job if they really are like kind of a person that can just crank out work or they may be really strong in one area, but it's like the moment you give them any feedback, they they bristle at it. It's a sign of a fixed mindset, which can be a very high achiever that like nothing can penetrate it and be wrong. Like, of course, I'm I'm great at this. I think it's, you know, obviously why that would be triggering, obviously, as a leader, is because feeling like you have to walk on eggshells around defensive Dan is awful. You know, there's some things to be course correct, and you see some opportunities. And if you're like, oh, I just don't want to have the conversation and hear, well, this happened and this and you did this, to have to avoid having a feedback conversation, that's a problem for you. Okay. So we have to, have to, have to figure that out. If you are letting behaviors slip or letting things go because you don't want to have the conversation, no, no, no, no, no good. Because everybody has things they need to develop. So when you're finding yourself in a with defensive Dan and you just like can't bring it up, this is where we want to get some training on feedback. We want to be having and potentially having, you know, like a facilitator to come in to do a team building thing where you get a little bit more kind of exercise where everyone's sharing. So like one of the kinds of workshops I lead with team is, you know, is start, stop, continue, whereas a group we can talk through things that are going well that we want to turn around, keep doing that kind of thing can actually start to bring the walls down where you can have some conversations with defensive Dan. And really just having a real, you know, a conversation around, hey, there when I give feedback, I've I met with this kind of thing. This is, you know, we've got to get through this and have that hard conversation. Again, a lot of the coach GHQ is around with that because it can be annoying, it can be hard, but we always anchor feedback conversations and expectations. So when we've anchored into expectations and saying, hey, I know we all have the shared goals here. I know we all want to achieve this, the expectation of this. Here's something that got in the way. And if you're hearing defensiveness, maybe get curious saying, Hey, I'm I'm hearing, you know, it's sensing frustration. Want to share more about that? And open the door, you might find that defensive Dan feels misunderstood or undervalued. Maybe he's got like a little uh praise-seeking poly in his ear, and he and he needs some he needs some appreciation. Maybe he's feeling mismatched. He's a little in in Debbie the Downer mode or Mindy the Mo mode, excuse me, trying to find my metaphors. And he's just feeling not understood. Sometimes a lot of times defensiveness comes from someone feeling misunderstood, like there was something that was unfair or something that was inaccurate, right? These are the feedback triggers that they talk about in the book, Thanks for the feedback, where certain things actually make us react to feedback in a way that you know is is less receptive. If every single conversation with defensive Dan is like you can't talk about anything, then that really could become a culture fit issue. But we cannot have a high performer that feels they can do no wrong. Like, no, right? It's not not how it's gonna be here. So these are three archetypes praise seeking Polly, Mindy the mope, and defensive Dan, that can trigger us as leaders, that we want to recognize, okay, why are we triggered? What is the issue? And how do we deal with it? How do we start the conversation? Because these are all folks that can be delivering great results and actually have really strong output, but still kind of make it uncomfortable, like just like to go to work where we don't really want to, we don't want to talk to them or don't want to have the meetings. And we want to get through that. Because on the team member side, we want to give everyone the opportunity to be successful, right? Because you're paying people here, and so you want them to do the work that you've hired them to do. We want them to be able to, you know, reach their full potential, feel like good about the work because people always do better work when they feel good about it, and really be able to maximize that. So dealing with this, it doesn't have to be a drag. Those are some strategies. And if you're feeling like, yeah, I get it. I I just I want you to go through my team members, let's diagnose each one. This is a really fun thing that I do with business owners all the time, is we go through and we're talking about their team members, kind of figure out what is the archetype, really again, and and what's underneath that. What are the things that this person is really wanting? What are the things that's running up against? And how do we figure out the way that you communicate with them or reassign their work so that it aligns perfectly? Because when you find that alignment, like I said, open the freaking floodgates. So if you want to have kind of a team archetype analysis, email me at hello at legarven.com. It's such a fun meeting because we come away with a clear plan of how to communicate best with every single one of your team members. And folks are finding, again, right away, it's unlocked so much frustration and stuckness on their team. All right, see you next time. Thanks for tuning in. And I hope this podcast makes leading your team feel just a little bit easier. If you liked this episode, check out my most popular tool for staying in the know of what your team's working on without having to micromanage at LeahGarvin.comslash snippets. And if you're looking for more support for yourself as a leader or for the team you're managing, don't hesitate to reach out at Leagarvin.com. See you next time.
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