Managing Made Simple

101 Episodes

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How to create a sense of urgency without micromanaging

2026-09-2919:00

Creating a sense of urgency on your team starts with the ask. When employees don’t follow through, the handoff was usually missing something. You ask for the client email, the deck, or the vendor follow-up, they say “on it,” and a day later you’re doing it yourself and wondering if anyone cares. In this episode, Lia breaks down the three pieces of a handoff that turn “on it” into ownership: a deadline, the reason behind it, and a two-minute check that it’s doable. In this episode you will learn: Why “on it” is an incomplete handoff, and how to fix it inside the ask How to put a deadline on a request without it feeling like micromanaging How to share context so the deadline matters to your team member, even when the reason is your own workload The questions that get your employee to own the urgency and flag risks early How to tell a delegation problem from a performance problem Resources mentioned: Work with Lia on mapping how work gets done on your team: liagarvin.com/contact Tell Lia how the three steps went with your team: [email protected] Connect with Lia: Website: www.liagarvin.com Email: [email protected] Instagram: @lia.garvin LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/liagarvin

The tool that pours rocket fuel on employee motivation

2026-09-2214:00

What to say instead of good job: "great work" and "nice job" are comments anybody could get, and specific employee recognition is a completely different tool. This episode breaks down acknowledgement, naming a quality you see in someone out loud, and why one sentence from a leader can change what a person believes they're capable of. Lia shares the sentence a manager said to her at a conference that changed the trajectory of her career, and the two-step method for doing it with your own team this week. In this episode you will learn: Why "I think you're good at this" undoes the compliment, and the two words to use instead The two-step method for recognizing your team members: pay attention first, then name it out loud Where to find hard evidence of what your people are great at when you're not sitting next to them all day What to say when someone pushes back and tells you no, they're not good at that The three rules for naming a strength in an employee: it has to relate, it has to make sense, and it has to be true Why the people who are best at something are usually the last to know it's rare 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: [email protected] Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin -- © 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

The 3-step conversation that retains your best employees

2026-09-1521:09

How to keep employees from quitting rarely comes down to money. Gallup found 42% of voluntary employee turnover is preventable, and most of it traces back to one conversation that never happened. In this episode, Lia breaks down the retention conversation to have with your best person before they start looking, and tells two stories from her own career where 30 minutes would have kept her in a job she loved. In this episode you will learn: Why the person about to quit almost never tells their manager first, and what they do instead What made a promotion conversation at Google land as nothing, and the version that would have kept her on the team What to say when the answer is no and you can't change it, so the no doesn't end the relationship The 3 steps of The Sit-Down applied to employee retention, including the words to open with Why waiting for your team to raise a concern first never works, even for approachable leaders The signals a good employee sends for months before the resignation lands 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: [email protected] Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin -- © 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

The Sit-Down: the conversation that makes feedback and recognition easier

2026-09-0817:04

The hard conversation with an employee you keep putting off has a structure. Giving feedback to an employee does not have to become a whole thing. In this episode, Lia breaks down the Sit-Down: one thirty-minute conversation, three steps, that works for the missed deadline, the behavior nobody has named out loud, the change your team did not ask for, and the person doing great work who has not heard about it in six months. In this episode you will learn: The three steps of the Sit-Down, and why leaders skip the first one Why "hey, can we talk" makes people brace for bad news, and what to say instead The exact language for recognizing a high performer so it lands as a career plan, not a compliment What to say to the employee who keeps saying "I'm on it" and never finishes the work How to follow up in writing so you have documentation without making it feel like a case file How the same three steps work when you are announcing a re-org or a change nobody asked for Resources mentioned: Free guide, the Sit-Down across five sticky team situations: liagarvin.com/convo 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: [email protected] Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin -- © 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

How to make 1:1s the most impactful meetings of your week

2026-09-0115:11

One on one meetings are the first thing leaders cancel and the one that costs the most. The fix isn't discipline, it's your one on one meeting agenda. In research run across Google, the top two behaviors employees named when they didn't feel supported by their manager were both about this meeting: canceling it, and showing up late. Lia breaks down why this is the most impactful meeting of your week, why yours feels pointless right now, and the four-part agenda that fixes it in fifteen minutes. In this episode you will learn: Why canceling and rescheduling one on ones lands harder on your team than you think What you only ever find out in a one on one, and never at the coffee cart or on a client call How your next delegation decision surfaces in this meeting The three reasons one on ones get canceled, and the fix for each one The four-part agenda: highlights, lowlights, blockers, and feedback What to ask when you get to the end and there's time left over Resources mentioned: The New Manager Playbook, which has the one on one agenda template: liagarvin.com/newmanagerplaybook 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: [email protected] Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin -- © 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

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