When I was a cub reporter, and even after moving to the business side, my managers would be out and about, talking with the staff -- working with them. Reading copy. Looking at sales proposals. Talking with customers. They were, in effect, working managers.
But, that was 20 years ago. Now is the future.
In my recent travels, I’ve noticed that manager are seldom on the floor. They seem to hide in their offices. They seem to avoid contact with the staff. That troubles me. A lot.
And, after thinking about this for a while while visiting a paper in the frozen tundra, what I noticed more than anything is that managers seem to be chained to their computers.
A flurry of e-mails, spreadsheets, gotta have this by an hour ago; oh crap what are we gonna do about this. They all come together in a manager's inbox and it is horrifying.
Again, in full disclosure, I have been guilty of this as well -- being chained to my inbox. I have a blackberry and an iPhone. Why? Because I'm an e-mail junkie. If it can't be done in an e-mail, it shouldn't be done.
Or so I used to think.
I've learned that managers should be out on the floor, talking with the people they work for.
Yes, you read that right. The managers really should be working for the staff.
The staff is the ones who really know how things get done. All the little tricks. All the little oddities. The root causes of these tricks and oddities should be learned and fixed so that there are not little tricks and oddities.
And managers can't find these things out if they're locked in their office waiting on that next e-mail from their boss. Managers should also, I believe, be the ones who are champions for making things better for the staff.
Need a new chair, the manager should get one. Lighting suck? The manager should talk to the right VP to get it fixed. Managers should manage the people and the process and the plant. It’s really that simple to me.
Maybe this lack of management attention is indicative of what's really wrong with the newspaper industry.
We've lost touch with both our customers and ourselves and like it better hiding from reality.
I've heard a lot of people say their manager is terrible. Maybe that’s true, maybe not.
But newspapers are notorious for not training anyone. It’s one thing to be a superstar on the floor. It’s another to be a manager. Merely promoting someone to a position of authority doesn’t make them a good manager.
Newspaper companies should invest in training their managers to actually manage. Hell, it took me a good five years to learn how to do it on my own, and I thought I was pretty smart.
When is the last time a manager really sought your opinion about how things were going? I don't ask this to be mean, or rhetorically. Rather, I ask it honestly.
To be sure, Managers are paid to manage. But, how can modern newspaper managers manage without getting on the floor and working with the staff?
The problem, as I see it, is that we've lost our focus. We worry more about covering out collective butts than helping produce a great newspaper everyday. The product has become secondary to moving electronic paper from place to place.
So, let's set a national "abstain from e-mail day." Hell, maybe convince your manage to get up, move around and leave his/her office for hours at a time and actually talk to their direct reports.
What a novel idea.
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