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The Necessity Of Failure
July 20, 2021
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I found a great interview with Nancy Dubuc conducted when she was running A&E Networks. I’m hoping you can watch it HERE (hoping, because you may need to be a subscriber to the New York Times,)
“There are very few black-and-white truths in management or in business, but one that I have found is that people either hire people who are smarter than them or people hire people who they can control.”
“Another pattern I’ve seen is that managers will sometimes complain that one of their employees is difficult to manage. But those difficult people also tend to be the best performers.”
“Sometimes managers don’t realize they actually have to manage people. You have to figure out what motivates them. Great managers recognize that there is not one way to manage. You may have to be 10 different managers to get the best out of your team.”
“…people tend to fall in one of three camps — you’re either a thinker, a doer, or a feeler. If you have all thinkers, nothing will get done. If you have all doers, that will be chaotic because you’re not really thinking about the consequences. And feelers are important because they create energy.“
“When you put the different kinds of people together in the right way, that can be very powerful. You never want that out of balance.”
From where I stand, especially in the larger consolidated radio groups in America, many managers are too preoccupied with daily financial data to even think about the team that creates what the sales staff sells.
These managers are too busy doing too many tasks for too many stations to afford the luxury of real management. And you can hear it when you listen to their stations.
The numbers crunchers at iHeart value Doers, probably because they know (or think) they are smarter than the managers they hire to run things at the station level. And there’s nothing you or I can say that will change what they think.
Our hope has to be with the smaller groups and with the iconoclasts within the biggest groups.
I know some great managers who find ways to strive for “better” every day. And we all know great ones who have left our business. The best talent always has the most options, and that’s as true for talented managers as any other position.
I refuse to believe Radio can’t be as dynamic, as compelling, as any other option today. In fact, I think Radio can be more.
And I know the people who know how to help that happen. You probably do too.
In that, I find hope.
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