Sunday, August 24, 2014

New Manager 3 - Book Thief

There an old saying about taking a page out of someone's book, to become more successful. As a new manager, there are a couple of books I'd like to rob.

One book is called, Living a Lifetime Every Weekend. There's this manager who always has a great stories to tell, seems he doesn't really think about work on his weekends or vacations and come in on Mondays ready to seize the day. For me, Sunday is Monday Eve. I gotta take a page out of Rocket Man's book.

There a book which is more like an address book, has tons of people in it, all friends, all with great stories. These friends, mostly girls, are sounding boards for difficult decisions regarding work. Women are generally smarter than men and this book is like a think tank. I mostly have guy friends and we all think the same way. I really need to take a page out of Officer Friendly's book.

One last tome. This book is full of green leaves, maybe a billion. It details the story of how a fortune was made and possibly some good things happened because of it. I'm sure some bad things happened (lessons learned), but maybe I could side steps those. There are a couple pages I'd like to take from this book, not because of their currency, but because of positive influence they could have on a generation. Would love a few pages from Big Pimp'n's book.

Of these are metaphors for people I've encountered in my professional life, hopefully I can learn from them, be a better me. People are books after all.

 

New Manager 2

There is a concept called necessary evil. I didn't understand this as a young Christian. Now as an agnostic and a new manager, it's crystal clear.

People, including myself, are motivated by necessity and incentive. When I say motivated, I mean breaking out of their inertia (usual routines) and become more productive. I thought just showing respect, providing more resources and showing that I care about them as people was enough to get folks to be productive. It's not. Seems to do the opposite, if it's not balanced with clearly defined expectations and consequences if those expectations are not met. I'm working on that part, the consequences.

Years ago I was a young art director. I had an enviable position at a young, forward thinking magazine. I was able to hire, as a freelancer, an older graphic designer I met. He had been in the magazine layout game a long time and was familiar production. Gave him a small layout job which he turned in at the last minute and the work was crap. That was the first time I ever raised my voice and fired a freelancer.

Looking back, I should have been keeping tabs on him and the rest tof the freelancers. Should have had a clearly laid out production milestones and penalties if you were late. Penalties for missing deadlines are evil, but necessary.

Evil, in this context, is the unpleasant action taken against a staffer, who refuses to improve when coaching and incentives fail. I wish it wasn't necessary, but I'd be lying if I said wasn't motivated by same factors. I know the root though.... it's the Ego.

Freeing ourselves of ego would also free us from the carrot and stick cycle (employee karma)... of course if all of us left off the ego tomorrow, there would be lots of career changes would there?

Yes, there would.

 

 

New Manager 1

Everybody has those moments of doubt. I had one this morning. Usually I just let the feeling pass, this time I challenged it. In the last ten years, I went from a cashier in a coffee house to a manager at top notch company. I've created and hosted three different podcasts, one episode got 5,000 listens. I've written four different blogs, several short stories and one unpublished novel. I haven't been sitting on my hands this last decade, not exactly.

I've been given the opportunity to manage a talented group of people in a high stress and rewarding environment. My team all know their jobs, but some folks don't always put forth that extra effort.

I've managed before, as an art director. It's was a little different than this gig. Models, photogs and illustrators are doing what they love, good at taking direction and (this is key) will go the extra mile to do a great job. In my current position, I feel like I'm paddling harder than some of my direct reports.

I have great management above, great colleagues beside. It's just a matter of learning fast, then implementing what I've learned faster. My only real "enemy" in this scenario is time.