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 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: hello@liagarvin.com
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin
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© 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 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: hello@liagarvin.com
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin
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© 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 thin
The high performers most at risk while you're heads down on your own deliverables
How to make one on ones survivable at 15 to 30 minutes every other week
Why status updates don't belong in your one on one, and where to put them instead
The one question to ask about every piece of work that lands on your plate
What it means when the answer to that question is no, every single time
Resources mentioned:
Weekly team check-in tool: liagarvin.com/snippets
Advisory and manager training: liagarvin.com/contact
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
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin
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© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

Revenue goals don’t motivate employees. The fix is one metric per role that each person can control, a number their own daily work moves. In this episode, Lia Garvin explains why the big number on your slide lands as “somebody is taking that home and it isn’t me,” and what to put in front of your team instead.
Your team can name the company goal. They can name their task list. Nothing connects the two, so they nod in the meeting and nothing changes on Tuesday. Lia walks through how to name an individual metric for every role, why explaining the cost of running your business backfires, and how to build the raises and bonuses around the numbers people actually control.
In this episode you will learn:
Why a company revenue goal demotivates the people you need most
The one sentence every person on your team should be able to finish out loud
What the metric looks like for a front desk role, an injector, a creative team, and a project manager
Why walking your team through the P&L makes the disconnect worse
What changes about a month in, when people start solving for their own number
How to structure bonuses, commissions, and raises around a metric each person controls
Resources mentioned:
Work with Lia (Ops Playbook for business owners, advisory sessions for corporate managers): liagarvin.com/contact
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
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin
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© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple

You gave your team the full picture: the research, the roadmap, the direction. They said they were on board. Then nothing moved. In this episode, Lia Garvin breaks down the gap between strategy and implementation, why it's the most expensive gap on any team, and what it actually looks like to bridge it.
In this episode you will learn:
Why giving your team a clear strategy isn't enough to get anyone to follow it
The difference between knowing what to do and actually internalizing, owning, and doing it
What the behaviors on the surface, the quiet team member, the recurring detail miss, the title question every week, are often actually telling you
Why AI has made the strategy side faster and the implementation gap wider
What implementation looks like in practice: the conversation, the system, the communication
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
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lia.garvin
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lia.Garvin
--
© 2026 Lia Garvin / Managing Made Simple