How to Become One of Radio's Great General Managers
by Bill Pasha
June 14, 2011
If you are lucky enough to have been cast in the role of a modern Radio General Manager, you know that the character that you portray is fraught with intrigue. Assassins constantly take aim at you from below; disgruntled employees whisper to anyone who will listen that you enacted the latest economic controls to finance next weekend?s client golf tournament. You intuitively recognize that your top biller may be a spy, sending surreptitious notes to her corporate masters with the intent to lower their budget expectations, undermine your credibility, and cause your regionals to question the sales leadership you so carefully recruited. Deejays launch a backroom campaign of disinformation about your latest plot to air a syndicated morning show from some big and unidentified city, even as you negotiate another five-year contract with your heritage team. And don?t get started on the engineer. What does he do with all that time at the transmitter?
The net results of intrigue, incorrect assumptions, and paranoia are chaos, turmoil, and a dangerous challenge to your value creation. So you must call upon the unique person who can put on the brakes and get this nonsense back on track. That person possesses the cunning of an MI-6 strategist, the skills of a top NSA analyst, and the strike capacity of a SEAL team. Only one individual in your organization fits that description: You.
It is time to assume aggressive command of your organization. It is time to draw upon a carefully nurtured network of intelligence gatherers that would make James Bond envious. As a top general manager, your team possesses vital information that can make or break your business. Recently, after a long day of working on a plan for three stations, one of the top GMs in the industry offered to share his methods for gathering and properly using subordinate information. You would know the name of this key market executive, so I will spare him the embarrassment of publishing his name. However, his managers and staff are likely to recognize his signature technique because his steps are basic and smart, just like him:
? Carefully plan your staffing needs. Every person that works inside a successful organization must have a reason to be. Every job must have a description. Each hire requires specific skills.
? Look at every opening as a necessity to significantly step up your team. You shouldn?t accept a lateral career move, and you shouldn?t tolerate a sideways job hire. ?As good as the last guy,? isn?t.
? Recruit as if every job is the most important one to your business. This means developing a network of potential hires before the job opens up. Get to know the top three people you would want in any key position. Cultivate each one. This step never rests.
? Accept ?walk-ons.? Great players sometimes come from unexpected sources. Be open to it. Look outside the radio industry for new skills and points of view. Fresh thinking often drives new success.
? Screen potential candidates exactly the same way. Assign recruits a project related to the potential position. Ask the same questions of everyone. Have a plan. Include an honesty component. Wear a bad tie to the interview and ask what the candidate thinks of it. You need people who are not afraid to give you bad news.
? Once you have hired the best people for your team, make your goals and expectations crystal clear. Your management team members must understand that everyone has personal goals, but the team?s goals always come first. The means by which a goal is accomplished should be irrelevant to the GM, providing that those means are legal and ethical. You assigned the task. Let the manager handle it. Monitor the progress and be available, but don?t micromanage. You have other things to do.
? Make it evident that credit and accountability for success are the team members.?
? Make management team members write reports. Yes, we all hate paperwork but committing in writing is different from a casual hallway conversation, or even a one-on-one meeting. A regular reporting system provides you with synchronous, real time information that can be collated, overlaid, integrated and parlayed into a whole that is greater than its parts. How often reporting occurs is up to the GM, but the level of detail should always be granular. That is the reason for the reporting process. No stone should be left unturned. There should never be a reason that a GM lacks any piece of information, from any department. Thus the term, ?general manager.?
? If the information is over your head, ask for an explanation. You are a generalist. That is your strength. You have an obligation to ask your hired specialist for support on the fine points. Don?t cut corners. Understand before you move on. It is up to you to make the correct decisions based on the best possible information. If you don?t get it, you?ll make a lot of bad choices.
? Set an irrevocable meeting with the team. Meeting times are non-negotiable, except in a mission critical emergency. Your engineer may be excused if the tower falls over. Minor conflicts are not an excuse to miss a meeting.
? Issue an agenda and limit the meeting to thirty minutes, or less. Your goal is to meaningfully integrate the information you gathered and use it to the entire team?s benefit. Don?t slow the process by covering report details again. State goals, assign work, and set completion dates. Never leave a meeting with those three items undone.
? Summarize every meeting in writing. Leave no doubt in any mind that you have command and control, but that each manager has the responsibility to perform to the standards you discussed in the meeting, and then report back to you.
? Praise good work publicly. Discuss underperformance privately. Everyone benefits.
? Celebrate your success. One feel good moment of celebration is worth a thousand times that in difficulty. Let everyone see that you revel in his or her successes.
? Share your progress with the group. Everyone loves to see the score.
Now you have a plan to defeat the bad guys. You have a team who believes in itself. You have information to be agile and effective. To win.
Now, if only they?d give you the Aston Martin.
Bill Pasha is founder and president of MultiBrand Media International, LLC, a concierge consulting company that produces content, represents innovative digital and broadcast products and services, and develops strategies in diverse managerial, operational, and marketing disciplines for media professionals in countries worldwide. Until recently Bill was VP of Programming for Entercom where he was responsible for over half of Entercom's 121 stations. Contact Bill at bpasha@multibrandmedia.com.
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