How to be a Frontline Manager in the Broadcast Industry.
Recently I read a paper by Henry Mintzberg titled: "The Managers Job: Folklore and Fact." The article describes a manager as having ten different roles. Three of the ten roles involve interpersonal relationships: figurehead, leader, and liaison. The next three involve information roles: monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson. Next, as a decision-maker, the manager fulfills the functions of an entrepreneur, disturbance handler, and resource allocation. Finally, there is the role of the negotiator.
First, let's define the ten job functions of a manager.
Figurehead: This typically involves the ceremonial parts of a management position. A president greets dignitaries, a manager takes an employee to lunch, or a CEO gives a state of the company speech.
Leader: This would be the typical duties of a manager—hiring, firing, evaluating, and giving feedback.
Liaison: This means that a manager spends equal time with people inside and outside their unit.
Monitor: as a monitor, a manager is trying to gain information about the environment through their informal and formal network of contacts.
Disseminator: in this role, a manager passes information on to subordinates.
Spokesperson: this is where a manager sends information to people outside their unit.
Entrepreneur: This is where a manager tries to react to the environment and improve their department or unit's position.
Disturbance Handler: In this role, a manager reacts to situations beyond their control. For example, the problem might be a looming strike, a supply shortage, or a supply chain issue.
Resource Allocation: This is a very common role for a manager who must decide who gets what piece of any budget.
Negotiator: This one is self-explanatory. A manager might be working on high-level cable or broadcast contracts, or it could be as simple as helping an employee resolve a payroll issue.
So, what do these roles look like in the broadcast production industry?
Let's go through each bullet point, assuming the role of a front-line manager. It would be easy to parse out a managerial job ideally suited for the list, but that's not real life. So under our assumption, you are the manager of a tiny department, let's say, the replay department. You oversee six replay operators for a TV station. You are a front-line manager and report to an operations director. But we will see throughout these exercises a manager might fulfill more or less of the role depending on their place on the organizational chart. As you climb the corporate ladder, the role responsibility will shift.
1. Figurehead: as a front-line manager, this might be the least significant role you might have. In my experience, this role was mainly to be part of special ceremonies that required all management to attend. For instance, I had to be part of all company meetings and sit in a special section because I was "management." When a station I worked for opened a new facility, I had to stand in a big group of managers for the ribbon cutting. When one of my employees won a monthly or yearly award, I was there to help them receive it. But figurehead could also be as simple as hosting a vendor or manufacturer at your facility for tours or other situations. As a figurehead, it is essential to remember that you represent the company, not just your department, employees, or yourself.
2. Leader: This is typical people management. It's the day-to-day hiring, firing, mentorship, and evaluation you give your employees. Leadership is probably 95% of your daily job as a front-line manager. As this can vary procedurally, it's sometimes hard to argue that leadership is one of the most critical aspects of your job. As a leader, you are the person your subordinates look to for guidance in all situations. But in a broadcast sense, you should be leading your team, not managing them. How many times do you take a shift on replay? How often do you have one of your employees shadow you during the quarter? Your goal as a leader is to have one of your subordinates take your job so you can eventually move up. So, how well are you teaching them to do your job?
3. Liaison: As a liaison, this doesn't mean that you should be ignoring your internal staff. It means that you should be working with other departments to avoid siloization. In broadcast, you can easily prevent isolation because you must work with other departments in a team-like manner. But, where this becomes tricky is outside of the TV or show production. When you're in your preparation, training, or maintenance phases, it can be easy to silo yourself and your department. If you are, for example, running a training shift, why not also schedule it with the audio person's training shift so that you can see how each other's jobs work? Can you work with another front-line manager to review budgets or schedules? When was the last time you had lunch with a member of creative services? These are examples of how to be a liaison. You're interacting with other departments as much as you interact with your department. Being a liaison contributes to camaraderie and a teamwork culture in the company. But, what happens if executive leadership does not contribute to this culture? What happens if executive leadership or managers above you do not follow this ethos? My answer always is that it doesn't matter. It is your responsibility to lead your people. Your responsibility is to develop culture, despite what the executive council might be doing. Do you want your department to have a negative attitude toward the company, or do you want your department to be the department that everybody wants to collaborate with? If so, you must be a liaison to the other departments to foster that communication and relationships.
4. Monitor: The monitor role is like doing reconnaissance. You are gaining information from outside your department. You keep tabs on what Graphics, Editing, and Finance are doing. But you are doing this using both informal and formal networks. Being a monitor means that you might have meetings with other department heads and your superiors, or you could be having meetings in the hallway or lunch room. These are all opportunities to gain information about what's happening in the company. However, the question is, what do you do with that information, and how do you leverage it for your department? For example, let's take a common broadcast situation. You hear in the lunchroom that sales are down. How does that affect you in the replay? If the sales department sells fewer advertisements for the month, that might mean that the producers might have to stretch out live TV segments to fill those 30-second gaps where a commercial might have run. Or, creative services might ask you for clips from sporting events or news items to put together new commercials for the TV station to run in those gaps. So even though sales might be down, your workload might increase.
5. Disseminator: You've gained all this information and must pass it along to your team. What information you decide to pass along is up to you. Still, there is a balance between too much information and not enough. Do your subordinates need to know that Jim from audio cut his finger on a piece of paper? Probably not unless it has OSHA ramifications. However, finding out that sales have undersold the month would be something to let your subordinates know. That could have ramifications for workload as well as an opportunity for creativity. In management, knowledge is power, but the power should be in the hands of your workers and not yourself. If you were to keep the knowledge of underperforming sales to yourself, it could blindside your workforce when asked to pull old footage. But sharing that information with them could lead to more creative opportunities or collaboration.
6. Spokesperson: Being a spokesperson for your department does not necessarily mean going out there and selling the rest of the company about how good you are. I consider this more of an advocate position. The broadcast industry has a predominant culture of "no" and not enough of a culture of "yes". Typically, the first response to a new initiative is "no, I can't do that". That statement is followed by a litany of reasons why they cannot fulfill the request. But as a front-line leader, it is your job to advocate for your employees. For example, somebody from creative services might ask for 30 hours' worth of footage. This request might represent 8 to 10 hours of work for your replay operators in addition to their regular duties.
In the role of spokesperson, you would advocate to management by saying something like:
"Creative services have given us this task, but we need more resources. Here's why."
Or
"Creative services asked us to pull 30- hours of footage. Let me be the liaison and talk with creative services to see if they need something specific. We could probably find it for them".
A spokesperson for the department also means letting your supervisors know about extraordinary accomplishments that your team members have accomplished. Maybe, for example, one of your team members was working a football game, realized a situation on the field, and decided to record different cameras than they usually would. Then something extraordinary happened on the field, and your replay operator had more creative angles to show the play. That would be a situation you would want to tout to management.
7. Entrepreneur: This is where the manager tries to react to the environment and improve their department or unit's position. A manager should be proactive in their approach and look for ways to improve things, but most of the time, we operate in a reactive posture (See my post on time management). The role of entrepreneur may include seeking out new opportunities or working to fix any problems that may be present. In a broadcast sense, this could be looking to hire freelancers for special projects or maybe looking at different replay systems depending on what producers or contracts the TV station acquires.
8. Disturbance Handler: Conflict resolution as a front-line manager is an essential people skill. Some significant strategic disturbances, such as strikes or supply shortages, might be out of your control. However, situations like employee infighting or interoffice conflict are something front-line managers encounter daily. But how do you handle the ones out of your control? For the sake of this example, let's look at a real-life situation: The global supply shortage. Let's assume that you have upgraded your replay system and are waiting for specific components to be shipped. Maybe you did your due diligence and ordered the equipment 6 to 8 months ahead of time, but there are still delays in shipping time. Your facility is still going forward, but you are unsure when your equipment will arrive. The delivery lag does not mean you must wait for the equipment to come in to prepare your staff. You can try to download software and hold training sessions on the new equipment. You can also try to get rentals of the same or similar models. Being a disturbance handler is about trying to mitigate issues to ensure consistent operation.
9. Resource Allocation: Resource allocation in broadcast is pretty simple. What human or money resources do you have, and where do they need to be? People think that scheduling in the broadcast industry is a difficult position. It is not. The simple fact is if you look at how many events or programs you must have per week, you can allocate your resources accordingly. Most people like a set schedule, so there's no reason not to accommodate that. Prime shifts are assigned by seniority. If there are not enough resources, this is where the job role as an advocate needs to come into play. I often get asked, "what happens if I don't have enough staff to cover a shift?" The answer is also simple. You do it. As a manager, I covered shifts all the time. It was my job. That is also the nature of management. If your company goes on strike, you will be covering the shifts anyway. The other option would be to hire freelancers.
10. Negotiator: A negotiator is someone who can communicate and work with others to reach an agreement or resolution. Negotiations involve communication and discussion between two or more parties to reach an agreement. Negotiation happens at all levels of management. As a front-line manager in broadcast, this could look like a negotiation for resources from your production manager or finance team. You might be requesting a full-time position to help alleviate stress on your current employees regarding workload. However, you might only need an additional 15 hours of the resource. The negotiation could be that if you hire this new person, your department can also take on more responsibility. Negotiation could be that you might not need a full-time position and can work with a part-time position. The full-time position could be a hybrid or dual department appointment where they spend half time in your department and half time in another.
My Experience
In my experience as a manager in broadcast, I often operated under a resource allocator. My position as the chief audio mixer was as a front-line manager. I would allocate human resources through scheduling, training, hiring, and firing. I also managed a small operations budget that replaced COB items such as microphones, batteries, and computer software. I played the role of negotiator as part of our operations budget was shared with other departments. Budgeting was a unique situation at my former company. The CFO's budgeting style was very much similar to stock trading. We would have to fight and justify capital resources while also negotiating between department chiefs for resources. Sometimes we would share staffing on special projects, which would then, in turn, require future consideration on other projects.
From a communication standpoint, I often assumed the role of spokesperson, representing my employees' interests to the rest of the company. I would often make cases for shared time off, justify training or off-site expenses, and recognize employee technical contributions. I often felt like my position represented the workers rather than typically managing them. Our audio engineers were highly skilled professionals who often broke typical broadcast audio conventions. But, since we were breaking new ground, upper management was unaware of the discovery and development of audio techniques. Thus, my position was to bring attention to their achievements.
A successful front-line manager can allocate resources in a way that benefits the overall operation. Resource allocation includes scheduling staff to work on tasks they excel at, providing training, hiring new staff, and firing employees when performance degrades. It is also necessary to be able to negotiate with other managers to get the resources needed for your department. Negotiations may include bargaining for capital resources such as microphones, batteries, and computer software or for human resources such as staff time and overtime.
Dr. Mike Testa
