Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Audit Team Energy
Transcript
- Lucas: Most new managers think their job is to manage tasks. They build Gantt charts, track KPIs, and obsess over velocity. But if you look at why high performers leave in the first ninety days, it’s rarely because they hated the work. It’s because they felt exhausted by the invisible friction of the role. Luna: Exactly. And usually, that friction comes from unclear priorities or constant context-switching. The manager isn't even aware it's happening until the resignation letter lands. Lucas: Right. So I want us to talk about a specific intervention called the team energy audit. It’s not a survey. It’s a structured check-in where you explicitly ask your direct reports to rate their current cognitive load and emotional drag, separate from their actual output. You’re measuring the cost of doing the work, not just the work itself. Luna: I like that distinction. Because someone can be highly productive but deeply resentful. If you only measure output, you miss the rot setting in. Lucas: Precisely. Let’s look at a concrete example. A director I spoke with recently runs a product team of twelve people. She stopped asking her weekly status updates to include a simple metric: what is one thing this week that drained more energy than it should have? She didn’t ask for solutions. She just asked for the data point. Luna: That feels risky though. If an employee says something drained them, don’t they expect you to fix it immediately? Lucas: It is risky if you aren’t prepared to listen without jumping to defense mode. In her case, she started seeing patterns. Two people consistently mentioned cross-departmental approval bottlenecks. Another mentioned vague feedback loops from senior leadership. These weren’t personal complaints; they were structural leaks. Luna: So the audit acts as a diagnostic tool for process failures, not just individual struggles. That shifts the burden away from the employee feeling weak. Lucas: Exactly. It normalizes the conversation around capacity. When you ask about energy, you’re signaling that you care about sustainability, not just sprint speed. And this brings us to a quick note on how we keep this show running. Luna: Yeah, we believe in keeping our conversations focused on value rather than interruptions. Lucas: We deliberately don't run ads on these shows. If you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It helps us keep the research deep and the format clean. Luna: And since we’re talking about sustainable practices, maybe supporting the podcast is just another way to invest in good long-term habits. Lucas: Let’s get back to the audit mechanics. The key is timing. Do this early in the cycle, not when things are already burning down. Start with the one-on-one. Ask the question directly: on a scale of one to ten, how much mental overhead is attached to your current projects? Not the difficulty, the overhead. Luna: Mental overhead is such a precise term. It captures meetings, emails, and approvals without blaming specific people. Lucas: It does. And here is the tricky part for new managers. When someone gives you a seven or higher, do not try to solve it in that moment. Your instinct will be to say, 'Okay, let’s cut that meeting.' But you might not have the authority to cut it yet. Instead, validate it. Say, 'Thanks for flagging that. I’m going to map out where that bottleneck sits in our workflow.' Luna: That prevents the manager from looking incompetent or promising things they can’t deliver. It buys time for analysis. Lucas: It also builds trust. You’re showing you take their experience seriously. Over three weeks, you’ll start to see clusters. Maybe half the team mentions a specific software tool as a drag. Or maybe the Friday afternoon wrap-up call is universally disliked. Luna: Friday afternoon calls are classic. Everyone wants to go home, but they feel pressured to attend to show presence. Lucas: Spot on. In my example, the director found that the Friday call was causing a twenty percent drop in weekend recovery time for her engineers. By moving it to Thursday morning, she didn’t just save time; she improved the quality of rest. Rest is a productivity multiplier. Luna: That’s counterintuitive for many bosses who equate late hours with dedication. They think cutting the call reduces visibility. Lucas: Visibility is often an illusion. What matters is whether the team has the bandwidth to execute well. The energy audit reveals where that bandwidth is leaking. Another common leak is decision fatigue. New managers often create too many approval layers. You ask everyone to CC you on everything. Luna: I’ve definitely done that. Fear of missing context makes me want to see every email thread. But that’s just adding noise to everyone else’s inbox. Lucas: It is. The audit helps you quantify that noise. If two people mention 'email overload' in the same week, you know you need to tighten your reporting requirements. Stop requiring summaries. Start requiring decisions. Give them permission to make choices without your sign-off, unless it’s a critical risk. Luna: So the audit isn’t just about removing bad stuff. It’s about empowering people to own their scope. Lucas: Exactly. It shifts the dynamic from supervision to enablement. Now, there’s a nuance here. Some employees will report high energy drain simply because they are struggling with the core tasks. That’s different from friction. Luna: Right. You need to distinguish between external friction and internal skill gaps. How do you tell the difference? Lucas: You look at the specificity. Friction is usually external: meetings, tools, approvals, ambiguity. Skill gaps are usually internal: confusion about how to complete a step, or anxiety about making a mistake. If someone says 'I don’t know how to use this tool,' that’s training. If they say 'This tool generates reports that nobody reads,' that’s friction. Luna: That’s a crucial distinction. Misdiagnosing a training issue as a process issue wastes time. Misdiagnosing a process issue as a training issue causes resentment. Lucas: Perfect summary. And this is where your initial one-on-ones are vital. You need to know each person’s baseline. Who thrives on ambiguity? Who needs structure? Once you know that, you can interpret their energy scores more accurately. Luna: So the audit works best when you already have some psychological safety built up. If the team doesn’t trust you, they won’t give honest answers. Lucas: Agreed. If you launch this audit in week two without any rapport, you’ll get polite, sanitized answers. That’s worse than no data at all. Build the relationship first. Share your own drains. Admit when you’re overwhelmed by a stakeholder request. Model vulnerability. Luna: When the leader admits they’re fighting friction too, it gives the team permission to speak up. It stops being a performance review and starts being a troubleshooting session. Lucas: Yes. And remember, you don’t need to fix everything at once. Pick one high-impact friction point per month. Solve that visibly. Then move to the next. Consistency matters more than heroics. Luna: Small wins build momentum. And they prove to the team that listening actually leads to action. Lucas: Which brings us back to the original premise. Managing former peers is hard because you lose the informal channels. But an energy audit creates a formal channel for feedback that replaces those lost informal talks. Luna: It structures the intimacy you used to have naturally. You replace hallway chats with scheduled diagnostics. Lucas: It’s a bridge. And it keeps you grounded in reality rather than assumptions. Most new managers think they know what their team is dealing with. They’re usually wrong. The audit forces you to confront the gap between perception and reality. Luna: That gap is where most leadership failures happen. Assuming alignment instead of verifying it. Lucas: Right. So my challenge to you this week is to pick one direct report. Ask them about one source of friction. Just one. Don’t try to fix it yet. Just listen and record it. Luna: Simple, low-pressure, and likely to yield more insight than any generic survey. Lucas: Try it. See what surfaces. And remember, the goal isn’t to eliminate all stress. It’s to eliminate the waste. Good stress drives growth. Bad stress drives attrition. Luna: Knowing which is which is the real art of modern management. Thanks for the practical framework today. Lucas: Anytime. Keep tracking the energy, not just the output. See what changes.