Managing the Gray – Positive Advice That Everyone Can Use to Succeed

Managing the Gray #10 Transcript
“C.C.’s Management Style & Tips”
(original post & podcast)

It is just things I believe in as a manger and things that I tried to do and hey if you take something away from this, if you are new in a management role, it is something I have noticed with companies. I think it does not matter what company you are. If you get the manager title or if suddenly you are taking over and you are actually managing other people, there is not like any training, they just kind of give it to you and you just kind of go and you kind of have to figure out as you go along. I know I have learned all of my stuff on the job. It is not like I have a management degree or anything. I mean I took management in college, but it is textbook. It is nothing. Real world goes a lot further but I mean everything that I have learned that has become my management style has been from feedback from employees and more importantly from other managers that I have had. I have had some amazing managers in the past. Managers or CEOs I mean people like [02:25 unintelligible] come to mind, best manager I ever had. Ben Levitan was a CEO that I loved. You know these are people that I would work for again in a heartbeat because they had such a lasting impact on me as an employee and a friend and it has been a lot of fun just speaking of that.

So here are some of C.C’s personal rules about being a manager. I think it is important to be a friend to your employees but it is also more important to be a mentor. It is a fine line where you have to… I mean I have only managed small teams, which I like. I have never had a gigantic department and I like that so that I can be friends with these people on a personal level. I know their wife. I know their kids. I know of them. I have not always met them but at the same time it is more important to be a mentor because sometimes when you are managing friendship can get in the way. They can make things awkward especially if it is something disciplinary or something not going so well. When it is happy, being a friend is fine, but when it is tough or when it is crunch time or deadlines get missed, it is tough. So, you got to be a mentor and work with this person. Let them grow. It is very, very important and related to that, somebody said one time you know, I firmly believe that as a manager I need to take all the heat and give all the praise. I am only as good as my team and thus if some project really goes well or what-not, I make sure to give praise to the guys and girls on the ground doing the work. It is sort of like, not make a war metaphor, but it is sort of like that. The generals only do so much. It is really the soldiers down there in the dirt, getting dirty and fighting that get the job done and all the heat should go to the person on the top. So, when something goes wrong, I want to be the one in the frontline. I want to protect my team from that. That is my philosophy and your team will respect you for that, but you have also got to be honest. You have got to be honest with your employees but you got to know where that line is, where you go, “Yeah, I shouldn’t say that.” If there is a major project going on at your company and say you do not firmly believe in it but it is going forward anyways, you got to be careful what you say to your team because if they see you hating it, they are going to start hating it. You have got to be… There is a filter there and it is really tough to know what it is.

Now, you have got to also motivate your employees. You have to know what motivates it. Let me tell you the truth, money is not the only option. Money usually is not the biggest factor. If you are working in a high-tech sector like I do, well I guess I do not work in the high tech… I have a high-tech sector in an academic job. The pay is okay. Academic is a perfect example. We do not pay as much as the real world, the corporate world. So money is not the incentive. There has got to be other things there and you have got to find out what it is because with every employee you have it is going to be a different motivator. Not everybody, some people like the flexibility of coming in and going. Some people just like the stability of a job. Others like the challenge of what you are giving them for work. It all depends. It is crucial as a manager. You find out what it is for each person because it is very different and that is not a question you can just walk up and ask. It is something you have to find out through trial and error. I mean you can ask but you are not going to… You have really to observe and that is a key thing. As a manager, you have to observe. You cannot be one of those managers. I hate the manager who is often in the corner office with the door shut and never interacts. You cannot do that. You have to go out and be with your people. Plain and simple, you need to be there. Just trust me. I once had a manager say I do not pay you to be good. I hired you to be great. It is an important part, why would I ever hire a mediocre person? I would not. I am hiring the best people I can find always. No matter what job it is. You need to as well. Never be satisfied for someone mediocre. I do not think anybody does that. Even though you are in a crunch time, you get a body in there. Do not put a dead body in there. It does not work. They smell. That is an important thing to stress to. I stress it to my employees. I demand excellence. It is what I want because it reflects bad on me if we are not delivering excellent results no matter what it is from the littlest thing to the biggest thing. It is super important.

One philosophy that has gotten me in trouble plenty times in life, but I have told this to my employees as well, is ask for forgiveness not permission. I would much rather you go out there and do something that you firmly believe in. If you do something stupid that is one of the things, but I would much rather you take the risk and come to me and go I messed up rather than asking for permission every step along the way because that can block innovation and creativity. You have got to let go. It is the same thing with all… That is what we are talking about now with all the digital marketing and the brands and stuff in Second Life. You have got to kind of let it go and let these things, trust me they will foster. See, I got Second Life in there. It will grow. You cannot just keep a leash on everything because it is not going to work and I think with employees, that is very important. Give them the rope to hang themselves was what someone else said, but let them grow. Let them just have some fun. I mean mistakes. You can make all the mistakes you want, but you have to learn from them and you are never allowed to do them a second time the same way. Mistakes happen. Some of the most smartest people in the world have had failed companies. Do you think Einstein figured everything out the first time? No, of course he did not. You got to make mistakes in order to grow but you got to learn from them. If you make mistake and you make it again, I have no sympathy for that. You cannot do that. You have got to learn from your mistakes and grow with them. Take the risk, take a calculated risk and if you fall flat on your face just get back up and figure out how to do it better and do it again, but do not do the same mistake. It is not that hard.

One of the other things I try do is I always tell my employees, I will try to shelter you from all the BS that happens, all the political stuff because your employees do not need that. That is your job as the manager. One of the fun things that come with the title is all the meetings and all the BS and just do not let that get to your employees. Keep it away from them and be honest with them if they are hearing things, answer their questions, come on. Again, that goes back to knowing what you can say because you cannot answer it fully but have open dialogue. You need to. If you do not have open dialogue as a manager, I do not care. Yeah you might yell, you know, have your minions do all your work, but it is not going to work. Have open communications. Talk to your people. Find out what is bugging them. Squash rumors. Just get out there and do it and honesty, honesty is mandatory back and forth. If you cannot, do not make up crap. If you cannot answer questions, say it, you know, I cannot talk about that. Likewise, as an employee, to me tell me straight up. Do not sugarcoat stuff. Do not hide around the truth because you are worried about getting in trouble. Just tell me the truth. I tell this to my kids all the time, honesty, just honesty, honesty, honesty. Never ever, ever, ever and that means no creative truths, none of that stuff, that drives me nuts. Listen, when I ask you and I say how long is it going to take? Give me a real answer. I do not want you to add fluff, you know, thinking I do not know and I do not want you to give me super aggressive, just give me realistic of what you think and I know that is tough on every project, but a real thing you need to think about is that when someone says how long is this going to take? Think about it and you can say, you know, we have not done this before, I am not sure, but I am estimating about X, but if you put way too much or too little, you are going to set precedence and that is dangerous.

Last but not least, if you are sick, stay home. Do not come into my office. I do not want… It is just a little thing. So, this has been a little different Managing the Gray. I just kind of wanted… That was my list, just a little quick thing where I want to dump out some management stuff out of my head and what I am thinking is I know we have got a very diverse population I figure you can take any, if you take nugget and just think about it in your day-to-day life, it does not have to be management. They are just little things there that you should think about and I hope it helps. It is a little different Managing the Gray. We will get back to our regular scheduled program next week, but no the cool thing about podcasting is that we can talk about whatever we want. This whole media space is changing. The way you manage someone yesterday is not the same as you manage them today. What happens if you are a virtual company? What if you manage people around the world that you have never actually met but they work for you? How does that work? I mean the dynamics is going to shift as more and more people are doing it. Now, they brought you there is telecommuting. There is Second Life. There are things like that. The world is changing around us as we walk forward. How does that going to work? Management is going to be really, really important. Management in this digital marketing space is a whole new ballgame. Sure, some of the old techniques are going to work and a lot of it is tried and true, but there is going to have to be some evolution in people’s brain as they move forward. After all, what are we here about? We are here about engaging the evolution, right?

So, hey, as always E-mail me managingthegray@gmail.com or swing out by managingthegray.com. I do not know if I mentioned it, I have people who get surprised all the time, I am blogging there as well besides just podcasting. So, if you subscribe to the feed, you will get posts as well as podcasts. We are going to be back really, really soon with another podcast. I am having so much fun doing this and you guys please keep the E-mails coming whether it is about consulting opportunities or just questions or a ton of you guys are coming into Second Life, which is a lot of fun. You can find me at secondlifeoffice.com. If you want to, that will take you to my home base. It is great hooking up with you guys and you guys are doing some amazing things out there in the digital marketing space and I am very excited hoping to see some of you October 19th and 20th in Toronto at the Community Marketing Associations Annual Digital Marketing Conference. I am speaking at that. That is going to be a lot of fun. We will see you very soon, all right? So take care, guys. Talk to you soon.

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