8

Twelve Steps Toward Better Management

Once you've decided to become serious about making a profit in the professional recording industry, it's time to take a look at a broad overview of management—one of the essential keys to success. We could also call it “how to be a more effective boss.” Good management requires the delegation of authority to others to act on your behalf. Each and every commercial recording facility has people other than the boss who are given the authority to assume the owner's responsibility to accomplish certain tasks that contribute to the studio's success. But never forget: although you can delegate authority, you cannot delegate responsibility. That is yours alone. Finding employees and keeping them happy, learning to trust and motivate them, and giving them the opportunity to grow require a basic understanding of the following 12 steps:

1.  Establish a foundation for proper personnel management.

Before you hire your first employee, you must decide just exactly what tasks you want him or her to perform. Whether you have one employee or 200, a basic written job description is mandatory if there is to be no misunderstanding about who is to do what, where, and how for the company. As you grow and the various departments of your company expand and require more employees with more specific duties, that original job description may be segmented, more duties delegated, levels of submanagement created, and so forth.

Once the job description is written, amended to meet changes in specific situations, and approved by all who need to deal with this person, the next step is to create a policy and procedure manual. This may sound “corporate,” but it is not. What, for example, is your receptionist supposed to do when your biggest client calls after normal business hours and asks for a tape release? Once you have taken the time to tell employees your policy, then you should avoid all possible chances of misunderstanding by putting it in writing so there will be no mistakes. You are not always available. They must know what you want them to do when a decision-making situation occurs.

When you hire someone new, he or she should know your company policies regarding health insurance (is there any, and what part of it does the company pay?), sick days, personal days, company holidays, overtime, salary reviews, opportunities for advancement, vacation, and so on. These policies should be detailed in your employee manual (in many states required by law) so that there is never any misunderstanding between you and your employees. If you have only a few employees, this may be accomplished with a succinct statement welcoming them to your company and outlining policies and procedures. If you are a larger company, a formal booklet is called for. In either case, when the employee first reports for work, an officer of the company should explain all of this, as well as take the new person on a tour of the company facilities and introduce him or her to other company staff. Good morale is very important to the smooth running of your facility, and it should start on the very first day of employment.

2.  Hold a Monday production meeting and a Wednesday staff meeting.

These two very important meetings have totally different agendas. The Monday production meeting is meant to firmly establish what will be accomplished in the following week. The Wednesday staff meeting is a discussion of policies and procedures, general communication of problems, and a consensus of what the solution to each problem should be—based upon the feedback of all present. The Wednesday staff meeting, for example, is an excellent forum for the resolution of interdepartmental assignments and responsibilities for project workloads.

These meetings should be open forums with sincere, two-way communication. This is not the place for unilateral orders from you without discussion. Both meetings must be held every week, with or without you. If you must miss either meeting, first delegate authority to a chairman and discuss the agenda. The goal of these meetings is to eliminate crisis management and improve communication. If you are successful, you will be certain that all of your people know what is going on in the various areas of the company and where they should each focus their energy.

3.  Manage your cash flow efficiently.

Establish written procedures for credit and collection policies, as well as a general set of rules for what gets paid when. Plan to have at least a weekly meeting with your bookkeeper or finance person, with discussion of reports showing aged status of accounts payable and receivable and projected cash receipts for the forthcoming period. In this way, you will never be surprised by your financial status and by a sudden need to get personally involved to resolve financial problems. Many times a call from the boss, either to collect a past due bill or explain why your payment is late this month, can save your financial people a great deal of time making and receiving telephone calls for the same purpose.

4.  Be a benevolent despot instead of a dictator.

Ruling by fear, the use of condescending public criticism, and making suffocating, unilateral decisions went away with the warlords (or should have). Supervise by example and admit your own mistakes freely. It makes you a better human being and gains the respect of your employees. Your job is to manage by example. “My house, my rules” and “Don't do what I do, do what I say” will get you nowhere. Motivate with education and understanding. It isn't always necessary to make decisions by committee, but at least show your team that you can be convinced to keep an open mind.

Seek out the opinions of your people and explain why you have made certain decisions, no matter how unpopular they may be. This does not mean “giving away the store” or being a wimp, or that your employees should love you. It means that you are giving them a chance to be heard and that you are making it very clear what you expect from them. Establish what the rewards are for exceptional work as well as what the punishment is for sloppy or late completion of their tasks. In the end, you have the power of the pen with regard to their paychecks. That is what makes you the boss. Fair treatment and their knowledge of your expectations are what keeps them working for you instead of for your competition.

5.  Listen as much as you speak.

Treat your employees as if they were your partners—because they really are partners in company progress. One of your primary jobs is to focus on the big picture of your business and integrate its various areas or departments into a smoothly running machine that gets projects completed quickly and efficiently. To do this, you must learn to intently listen to what your people have to say about their work-oriented problems. Much of the time, when you don't understand the problem, it is because you have not listened with sufficient concentration.

Focus on whoever is speaking and clear your mind of all other matters. Let them finish their explanation before you answer. Resist speaking until you can respond rationally instead of reacting emotionally to what they are saying to you. As a test during a conversation or meeting, keep track of the amount of time you spend talking vs. listening. It should be about equal in most situations.

Listening is more difficult because you have to focus on another person's words and try to understand what they mean, when you would much rather interrupt and tell him or her the answer you have already decided upon. Listening intently will convince the speaker that you want to understand. Interrupting will prove that you don't care and just want to get on with your day. Which method would cause you to respond more positively?

6.  Praise in public, criticize in private—and terminate gently.

Let all of your employees know publicly when someone does an especially good job. When an employee has done something wrong, criticize him or her in private by explaining what it is that is wrong, why it is wrong, and how to fix it. Focus on the solution, not on what caused the problem. Work together to make it better. Above all, give the employee a chance to explain what happened and why it happened before you discipline him or her. Don't be paternally condescending; your employees are not your children, any more than your children are your employees. Be very clear to everyone about your warning policy for serious work errors.

The above recommendation is intended for the first time a serious error happens. The second time that same error or an equally important error is committed by the same employee, explain carefully that you have a “three-strike policy” and that if the error is not corrected within a certain time period or if it occurs again, the offender will be terminated. Be careful, because in many states you are required to do this in writing each time and get the employee to sign that he or she has received a copy of the admonition. State labor boards can be very nasty to an employer who does not carefully document all serious criticism that leads to termination. This is called discrimination, and the penalties are harsh.

If you do have to terminate an unacceptable employee after the “third strike,” the secret is to do it gently. Reiterate the occurrences that have brought you both to this point. Explain why you have no choice but to terminate him or her. Explain that it is not necessarily that he or she is unfit for the job, but that perhaps both of you made a mistake at the beginning. Hand the employee a termination check at the time of this meeting and, if necessary in your state, get his or her signature on the written report you are required to submit. Collect keys and other company property at that time, and have one of your managers accompany the employee to collect personal property and show him or her to the street. Leave employees with their egos intact, and they should not be that offended. Remember, the young assistant you terminate today may be the client of tomorrow. We are a weird and wonderful industry. I have seen it happen many times that an employee who did not work out with us went somewhere else and was a giant success. If they ever do come back to your facility as clients, you want to minimize the bad feeling they will have for you. I have found that the best way to do this is to carefully explain “why,” answer questions carefully and completely, and wish the employee well in future endeavors with a handshake and a cheerful good-bye. It works well if you are sincere and if the employee understands that it was a chain of events and not just his or her ineptitude that caused this situation to occur.

7.  Be decisive, and don't change your decisions.

Once you have discussed a particular work-related problem with the people who must deal with it, mutually decide immediately upon the solution. Put it in writing whenever possible (particularly if it is a serious change of company direction or policy), and don't change that decision without further open discussion.

If you go against this rule, there may be a revolution within your company. There will at least be a feeling of insecurity and betrayal, a distrust of you and an unwillingness to believe that you won't change your mind again the next time this happens. Communicate why the decision needs to be changed before announcing your change of mind, and be certain that all employees who are affected by this change are notified and have a chance to respond to your logic.

An indecisive boss is like a ship without a rudder. You never know which way he is going to turn, and it's bothersome for employees to prepare for every eventuality. This is a serious waste of productive work time for which you will be held responsible, even if it is only by the person you see in the mirror.

8.  Get organized and preplan activities.

Explanations of the philosophy, goals, and mission of your company, preferably in writing, provide positive direction to your employees. If you are organized, they can look to you to help them be better organized. What are the three most important rules of management? The punchline goes: “Follow up, follow up, follow up.”

An increase in written communication of what the important aspects of a particular project are and what is expected of the team responsible for its successful completion will provide more efficient use of work time and the understanding of what is expected of everybody. The staff will learn that you are serious about mutually agreed upon deadlines and will not tolerate their being late or incompletely accomplishing the tasks assigned to them. Written agendas for meetings are a good place to start. It keeps the meeting on track and gives everyone present an opportunity to think about the next topic to be discussed. This results in more effective, succinct comments and suggestions that lead to a more rapid understanding of the problem and therefore to a quicker mutual agreement on the time allowed for the task and the content expected. More about this in 10.

9.  Delegate authority and then move on to the next task.

Proper delegation of authority is a major key to business success. You can't do everything yourself, even though you wish you could. Wouldn't it be nice to have a perfect world without error and no misunderstanding about what you wanted?

Good time management requires that you determine the most important ways in which to spend your workday. Once that is decided, all of the remaining tasks must be accomplished by someone else—even though you are still responsible for their completion. The most important part of delegation is explaining the task to be completed. You must be certain that those to whom you have delegated truly understand what you are asking them to do. Ask them to verbally feed it back to you and agree on the time it will take to accomplish it. In this way, your follow-up is greatly simplified.

Once this is done, leave them alone. Using your time to repeatedly look over their shoulders will be counterproductive. Instead, encourage them to seek your assistance or ask questions if they decide they need your feedback. Make it clear that you expect them to deliver their completed tasks on time, but that they should not be afraid to ask for guidance or assistance. Then cut them loose. Next!

10.  Create opportunities for growth.

Everyone wants to grow in their job and make more money. Some want more power. All must understand that you delegate more authority to them in order for them to grow. If you do not provide opportunities for growth, your really good people will leave you and go to a company that does. Since it takes so much time and effort to train and mold good people, it is to your great advantage to keep them motivated and help them grow.

Write on your daily calendar: “Get Up and Walk Around.” This means going to your employees’ work locations and talking to them in their space. Find out what they want to do with their work lives, help them understand the next logical step, and give them your estimate of the time it will take them to get there. Give regularly scheduled individual performance reviews, and properly reward the growth each employee has accomplished. Determine how much authority you may delegate to them without invoking the dreaded “Peter Principle,” which states that people tend to be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.

Last, but certainly not least, when you can offer them no further growth and they find a company that can, eagerly recommend that they take the new position. Remember, in a truly well-managed company, everyone is expendable. Even you.

11.  Effectively share what you know.

In most cases when you are dealing with your employees, you believe that you have the ability—and they trust that you have the experience—to make the proper decisions. Otherwise, they should be the boss and you should be the employee. When you are delegating a task, don't assume that the person knows or understands what you are talking about. Provide a small amount of information and then ask questions. Try not to be intimidating with your questions. Instead of: “You get what I am saying, don't you?” a better way to put it might be: “I'm not sure I am describing this well—what is your understanding of what I have just asked you to do?”

Once it is clear to you that the employee understands the point you have made, don't dwell on it. Move on to the next part of the task. Your job is to be sure that employees understand your explanation of the tasks you are asking them to perform. This requires a balance between telling them too little and being so redundant that you almost put them to sleep. Only by asking them questions in a motivating manner can you be sure that the description of the task is complete and that they will provide you with the solution you desire.

Occasionally share some of the thought processes and considerations that have gone into making a corporate decision. One of the things employees need to learn, so that they can grow with your company, is how to think outside of their own box and see the big picture—how to look at problems from different points of view and still learn from your experiences, so that they will not make the same mistakes you have made. Thus, they will make new mistakes and everyone can learn something.

12.  Communicate, communicate, communicate.

In closing this chapter, I must emphasize that the true key to effective integration of the previous steps is communication. To activate these ideas through better and better communication, I often focus on the following thoughts:

•  Assume nothing.

•  Question intelligently and respond succinctly.

•  Don't lecture your employees. Educate by actual example.

•  Share with your employees everything you can about the operation and methodology of your business. Be open instead of mysterious.

•  If someone has a better solution to a problem, adopt it and give them public credit for solving it.

•  Effective listening will help you delegate more effectively. This in turn will allow you the time to grow your successful business faster and far more efficiently.

•  Never forget that although you are the boss, the success of your business means finding and keeping the right people, who will make it work better than that of your competition.