Managing Made Simple

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: hello@liagarvin.com
Connect with Lia:
Website: www.liagarvin.com
Email: hello@liagarvin.com
Instagram: @lia.garvin
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/liagarvin

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 insteadThe two-step method for recognizing your team members: pay attention first, then name it out loudWhere to find hard evidence of what your people are great at when you're not sitting next to them all dayWhat to say when someone pushes back and tells you no, they're not good at thatThe three rules for naming a strength in an employee: it has to relate, it has to make sense, and it has to be trueWhy the people who are best at something are usually the last to know it's rareDownload my FREE guide to making hard conversations with your team easier at liagarvin.com/convoLooking 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.comContact: liagarvin.com/contactEmail: hello@liagarvin.comFollow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvinWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin--© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

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 insteadWhat made a promotion conversation at Google land as nothing, and the version that would have kept her on the teamWhat to say when the answer is no and you can't change it, so the no doesn't end the relationshipThe 3 steps of The Sit-Down applied to employee retention, including the words to open withWhy waiting for your team to raise a concern first never works, even for approachable leadersThe signals a good employee sends for months before the resignation landsDownload my FREE guide to making hard conversations with your team easier at liagarvin.com/convoLooking 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.comContact: liagarvin.com/contactEmail: hello@liagarvin.comFollow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvinWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin--© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

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 oneWhy "hey, can we talk" makes people brace for bad news, and what to say insteadThe exact language for recognizing a high performer so it lands as a career plan, not a complimentWhat to say to the employee who keeps saying "I'm on it" and never finishes the workHow to follow up in writing so you have documentation without making it feel like a case fileHow the same three steps work when you are announcing a re-org or a change nobody asked forResources mentioned:Free guide, the Sit-Down across five sticky team situations: liagarvin.com/convoDownload my FREE guide to making hard conversations with your team easier at liagarvin.com/convoLooking 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.comContact: liagarvin.com/contactEmail: hello@liagarvin.comFollow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvinWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin--© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

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 thinkWhat you only ever find out in a one on one, and never at the coffee cart or on a client callHow your next delegation decision surfaces in this meetingThe three reasons one on ones get canceled, and the fix for each oneThe four-part agenda: highlights, lowlights, blockers, and feedbackWhat to ask when you get to the end and there's time left overResources mentioned:The New Manager Playbook, which has the one on one agenda template: liagarvin.com/newmanagerplaybookDownload my FREE guide to making hard conversations with your team easier at liagarvin.com/convoLooking 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.comContact: liagarvin.com/contactEmail: hello@liagarvin.comFollow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvinWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin--© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

Player coach management breaks down the same way every time: the player work wins and the coaching slides. If you lead a team and carry your own deliverables, you already know how the week goes. The player work has deadlines and escalations. Coaching has none of that on a Tuesday, so the one on ones come off the calendar first, starting with the people who seem fine. In this episode, Lia breaks down what that costs you and your team, and the three moves that get you back into the coach half of the job this week.In this episode you will learn:Why the player half of the job always wins when you're spread thinThe high performers most at risk while you're heads down on your own deliverablesHow to make one on ones survivable at 15 to 30 minutes every other weekWhy status updates don't belong in your one on one, and where to put them insteadThe one question to ask about every piece of work that lands on your plateWhat it means when the answer to that question is no, every single timeResources mentioned:Weekly team check-in tool: liagarvin.com/snippetsAdvisory and manager training: liagarvin.com/contactDownload my FREE guide to making hard conversations with your team easier at liagarvin.com/convoLooking 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.comContact: liagarvin.com/contactEmail: hello@liagarvin.comFollow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvinWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin--© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple