MC76 Manager regrets: how situations changed us and what it means to us now.
Release Date: 04/15/2024
MC93 Knowing When to Move On - our final episode
Management Café
Yes, this is Tim and Pilar's last episode, so we talk about moving on and the importance of wrapping things up. Interview with Andy Gotts photographer that Pilar mentions: Find out more about Pilar and Bree’s book on loneliness in remote teams:
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MC92 Manager Mindset: Perfectionism
Management Café
In this episode, hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about the dangers of being a perfectionist when managing a team, and why it's different to being a perfectionist individual contributor. (And you'll hear for yourself how neither Tim nor Pilar are perfectionists...)
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MC91 Manager Mindset: Loyalty
Management Café
Hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti have a good chat about the nature of loyalty, who we should be loyal to at work and what happens when we get the balance wrong.
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A quick thank you and we'll be back next year!
Management Café
Have an excellent start to 2025 - from Tim and Pilar.
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MC90 Manager Mindset: Pessimism
Management Café
Who knew that talking about pessimism could be so much fun... even if most of the laughter is self-deprecating. In today's episode, hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about what happens when we let our "inner pessimist" come through. For more information, visit
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MC89 Manager Mindset: Comparison
Management Café
The new series on Manager Mindsets starts with a discussion of comparison. Comparison is unavoidable, especially in the age of social media. It can feed difficult and unpleasant emotions like doubt, jealousy and imposter syndrome. Indeed, someone once said “Comparison is the thief of joy”. And if we aren’t careful comparison can even tempt us into mindlessly copying others, which takes us away from our own unique path. But in many aspects comparison can be helpful. It can be wonderfully motivating. It can show us what can be improved and help us understand what we value. It can even...
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MC88 Feedback, Mindset vs Cognitive Tendencies and Long-Covid Awareness
Management Café
As co-hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti wrap up the Manager Emotions series, they explain why they're moving onto mindset, and how this is different from cognitivie tendencies (and why they might well be mixing the two up!). Plus, some feedback on our episode on Emotional Contagion, and Pilar shares an episode from Workplace Geeks where one of her connections talks about living with long-covid and how this affects her work life. Get in touch with Pilar and Tim through the
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MC87 Manager Emotions: Confusion
Management Café
Our hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about the many times they've been confused, the difficulties in feeling the emotion as individual and manager, and what happens when a team member becomes confused.
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MC86 Manager Emotions: Compassion
Management Café
For the sixth episode of our series on manager emotions, Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about Compassion. Good leaders don't just remove obstacles and show their people the way forward. People also need to know that their leaders will support them in the hard times. And importantly, they need leaders to demonstrate compassion when they are in difficulty. This is distinct from sympathy - where the leader might acknowledge someone is suffering but not do anything to help or even really align with their emotions. Empathy is closer - it helps when leaders can demonstrate that they...
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MC85 Manager Emotions: Pride
Management Café
Welcome to the fifth episode of our series on manager emotions, where hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about Pride. We want to see good work, both in ourselves as managers and also in the teams that we lead. Pride creates a virtuous cycle that rewards and encourages healthy achievement. Do a good thing -> share this achievement with others -> receive recognition -> feel proud -> do more good things. But pride can be a tricky emotion in the workplace. Excessive displays of pride can turn people off. Pride can also clash with other attributes, most notably humility....
info_outlineSeveral times recently in the Management Café our hosts have talked about regrets. Those formative management experiences where they look back and wish they had acted differently. Making mistakes is part of our learning journey but some situations weigh on us more than others. Revisiting them can bring a range of challenging emotions like regret, guilt and shame.
Regret is an uncomfortable feeling, it's something we avoid. The discomfort can be heightened for managers who have a duty of care over their team and the extra weight that comes with an official title and position within the hierarchy.
Yet we can't just ignore it and move on. Regret carries valuable knowledge. It helps us understand what truly matters to us. It makes us aware of what behaviours need to change to in order to match our values. And it doesn't want to let go until we've acknowledged the lesson. This can be a slow and painful but very worthwhile process.
Pilar and Tim share a few of their (many) regrets as managers and talk how these experiences changed them. For our hosts this conversation is, in the words of Hector Santiesteban, restorative and therapeutic.
SHOW NOTES
00:30 mins In episode #74 "Leading in the Flow of Work", Pilar and Tim each talked about how they previously tried to live a life without regrets. But with age and more experiences this changed. Inevitably there are lots of regrets.
2:20 Regret can be a very helpful emotion for managers. It tells us that our actions in a particular situation weren't in line with our values. And it is important that in the future we handle these situations differently. Regret is a guide for our behaviour. When a situation comes up again we can be reminded of our regret. This helps us make better decisions in the moment.
4:15 Regret is uncomfortable but knowing that we can learn from bad experiences can make them a little more bearable. Regret wants us to understand why we feel bad about our actions and to try behaving differently in the future.
5:15 We experience regret because we care about what happened. If we pay attention to our regret and explore why we cared so much about a particular situation, it helps us better understand our values and how we want to live.
6:30 Tim used to tell himself that he'd never regret something if he felt he'd made a good decision based on what he knew then. But he came to realise that a lack of knowledge or awareness didn't necessarily excuse his actions and decisions. He'd still experience regret.
7:15 If we reject our regrets and hide behind phrases like "it's just business" then we are denying ourselves a valuable opportunity to learn.
8:00 Pilar highlights two different learning experiences. The first is regret from doing something we know we shouldn't do. The second is more nuanced - we think we're doing the right thing but we aren't. We are lacking the knowledge or experience to know better. So regret comes in to teach us.
8:50 Tim shares a story of one of his big regrets, when he reacted poorly to one of his team members who was struggling during a difficult period. The way Tim handled this situation nagged away at him for a long time. Looking back he can see he turned away from an opportunity to connect with and support the person. As a result they both suffered more.
12:00 This realisation took a long time to arrive and revealed itself in stages.
14:00 Talking about these situations with others can help us see things differently.
15:30 Pilar has a big regret from her period teaching A level students for Theatre Studies. A situation came up where her natural approach of positive reinforcement didn't work. She can still picture her student's face when it went awry! But for Pilar, the lesson was learnt and she decided to get better at corrective feedback.
20:15 Another of Pilar's regrets came from ignoring her gut instinct when taking on client work. The next time her gut started to tell her "no", she listened!
21:30 If we listen to our regret and act accordingly, at least we shouldn't experience regret over it. But it's hard to change behaviour. It might take a few attempts.
22:15 Regret hurts. Our memories of those situations are so vivid. We have a visceral reaction to the negative impact of our actions. This is part of the process, the pain helps us change our future behaviour. In a sense the deeper the regret, the better the lesson.
25:50 Pilar references The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward by Daniel Pink which suggests people have more regret over things they haven't done versus things they have done. (Neither host has read the book, neither has regrets). Pilar suggests that talking about regrets over things you've done is harder than regrets over things you didn't do. Because we have a clear understanding of the impact from the things we've actually done.
What about you, dear listener? What is your biggest regret as a manager? We'd love to hear from you!
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