by Kit Mann
Complacency. That is the #1 symptom that I see and hear when I talk to small market PDs and managers who have it a bit too easy. Complacency is the reason that so many of fellow PDs (sorry to tell it straight, guys) have lost their jobs lately. I was speaking to a PD in a small market (who asked me to keep his name confidential because he KNEW I would write about this) who told me that he only did the minimum needed because he knew that his GM didn?t know any better and he had ?too much to do anyway.?
I asked what he meant by ?too much to do? and he said that he had a ?cushy? job at the station with no accountability and that he had lots of other outside interests. So because his GM trusted him to do his job, he became complacent at work and decided that his JOB was his second or third priority. That sounds to me like a GM has misplaced his trust?or perhaps we have another problem: Accountability.
I know of another PD in a small market, (who I used to work with) who DEMANDS to be out of the station by a certain hour of the day. He makes a big deal of telling anyone that will listen that since he does mornings, he must leave by 2pm. When I found out why, it was because he likes to play video games online. When I asked him if he was afraid of the GM finding out, he said ?I just do what the consultant says. It?s not like I have any real responsibilities anyway??
Both of these guys are talented PDs but have allowed themselves to be complacent at work because they are not being challenged by their GMs to be more creative or responsible. Sales staffs have these problems for sure, but in most cases, lack of work or lack of effort will show up in tangible sales figures and that person will be offered the door. PDs and programming people are a bit more of a test.
As managers we need to challenge our employees. GMs need to dare their PDs and Sales Managers to be leaders. PDs and Sales Managers need to face up to their staffs and get them to produce, be creative and be responsible. Surely personal PRIDE has to come into play at some point as well, but when your morning show is getting to the station thirty minutes before their show or your PD is simply running a log without editing or massaging it because the ?GM won?t know the difference? then something is amiss with motivation.
I am writing a book called ?Be a leader, not a boss.? In that book, my goal is to help teach up and coming managers to lead not only by example, but by asserting their expectations. We need to be honest with our staffs. We need to tell them what we expect from them performance-wise AND from their actions in the building. We need to hold each other to higher standards if we want to survive.
Living and working in small markets can be very rewarding. We can connect easier. We can relate to a more intimate audience, but we can also become complacent and let the product suffer. When that happens, numbers suffer (and they go to places OTHER than the over-the-air competition now?), sales suffer and people lose their jobs. Let?s hold ourselves to a higher standard. Expect more from our employees and we will get it. Expect less---we will get that too.
Kit Mann is the morning host and program director of KBPY in Chadron, NE. A brand new signal that he built from the ground up this year. Or Facebook.com/kitmannrocks. Or on Twitter at kitmannrocks
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