Management Lessons: That's What She Said

Management Spin

Editor's Note: A new month, a new format. I'm incorporating some changes: clips instead of quotes where possible (though you'll have to scroll ahead to the time indicated above the clip -- and I'm not sure how well I'll do on clips, since I don't have a video editor and I'll be relying on outside sources), plus a new e-mail address and a new Twitter feed.  I also have a new Facebook Page where I'll post discussion topics and assorted other stuff. Drop me a line, let me know what you think!

Spin City focused on the office of New York City Mayor Randall Winston, as run by Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty and as populated by assorted government underlings. Each staffer has to help run City Hall, improving the mayor's image and covering for his frequent gaffes. It is a tougher job than one might think: Winston is more accident-prone than most politicians, and relies on his deputy to save him -- who in turn relies on the staff to help. Therein lies the other part of the problem. Fiercely loyal to Mike and the administration, they are nonetheless a group of employees who range from hypercompetent to hyperneurotic.

Deputy Mayor Mike is the main focus of the show, and he did a lot of managing throughout the series. He's high-energy, competent, rational, all the things a good manager should be. Early in the show's run, he contends with the assistant deputy mayor, Stuart Bondek. Stuart is an underling who not only covets Mike's job, he is essentially less than motivated to do his own. But when Mike gives him a chance to shine, Stuart doesn't simply do the job as it needs doing, he tries to overstep. This works about as well as one might expect. The show does a charming job of pulling Mike in to demonstrate leadership in the same scene.

(Start viewing at 7:42.)

The inevitable sitcom screwup comes only minutes later in TV time.

(Watch from 1:23-2:20)

Mike rubs it in further with even more public humiliation when the gaffe can't be fixed and disaster ensues. You'll notice, however, that Mike also realizes when he screws up. And watch Stuart's reaction. This is exactly the way to react when your boss has lost it and done the wrong thing to you in front of a crowd. Do not engage, do not make excuses, just make the acknowledgment and remove yourself as quickly as possible.

(Watch 5:50-7:22)

And, given a chance, Mike ultimately makes it up to him.

(Watch 9:05-end)

Mike demonstrates plenty of good management strategies over the course of the series. Morning staff meetings are daily, but short and useful. He delegates, but he doesn't hover. He expects excellence from pretty much everyone except his boss, and they all deliver. And, perhaps most important, he is as good a deputy as he is an administrator, serving as a friend to his boss in a time of need.

(Watch 00:32-2:10)

Theatrical Thursday: Managing Editors

Every time I watch The Paper, I thank God that real life isn't like that, even on the worst days, even in modern times where the Internet makes every story's arrival a deadline.

So it is a lovely little escapist frolic. It is also a lovely study of three managers and their priorities, and of how their styles work, don't work, clash and complement.

Henry Hackett is the metro editor of the New York Sun, a fictional New York City tabloid. A workaholic who loves his job, Henry starts his day with a job offer at the Sentinel, a fictional version of the New York Times, on the line and a very pregnant wife (who is also a reporter on leave) anxious for him to accept. Once he gets to work a hot story confronts him with tough decisions, deadlines and personal crises and reluctant help from his star columnist, McDougal.

Part of the reason my life isn't like this movie is because I'm a very different manager from Henry. Or at least, I like to think I am.

Henry: What's the matter with Phil? It looks like he sat on something sharp.
Henry's Secretary: Well, you told him he could have Richard's old desk, right?
Henry: Right.
Secretary: And now you promised it to Carmen. Are you completely psychotic?
Henry: I have episodes. Nothing serious.
Secretary: Phil is still pissed you wouldn't approve his $600 orthopedic chair. And now with this desk thing, he's convinced it's a conspiracy to prevent him from sitting down.

Henry is frantic and disorganized. He's the only metro editor I've ever seen who has a secretary -- and an unflappable one, at that -- yet he still loses things, misses deadlines and can't keep his desk organized. 

Wilder: I struck out with the cops. There's something definitely going on. None of those sons of bitches are talking.
Henry: Where did you go?
Wilder: Police headquarters.
Henry: You gotta go to the precinct for this! Of course nobody's talking at headquarters!

Henry also spends a lot of time reacting when he could simply strategize better and do a better job prepping his staff to do their jobs. Presumably Henry knows Wilder is a stiff who will do the obvious yet incorrect thing. How hard would it have been for Henry to direct the guy to the precinct in the first place rather than wasting precious hours getting the runaround? Ultimately, Henry runs off to the precinct to get the quote himself with McDougal, who might benefit some from the experience, but if we accept that McDougal is operating at 80 or 90 percent, it should be Henry's job to bring the 30-percenters up to at least 50.

On the other hand, Henry does love his job and the industry, and he is beloved by most of his staff. He lets people try, and then, in his finer moments, helps them improve.

Ray: (for the fifteenth time in as many minutes) You got another word for ...
Henry: I got another word for all of them. Get out of the chair.
Ray: No, don't change that! (Reads over Henry's shoulder.) Oh. That's pretty good.

In the middle of all this, he steals the lead off the desk of his potential new employer. Needless to say, the job offer is rescinded, and the exchange turns toxic.

Sentinel editor: Well, I hope you're satisfied, asshole! You just blew your chance to cover the world!
Henry: Really? Well guess fucking what? I don't really fucking care. You wanna know fucking why? Because I don't fucking live in the fucking world! I live in fucking New York City! So go fuck yourself! (Henry slams down telephone back on the receiver.)
Henry's Secretary: You handled that well.
Henry: Thank you.

I rather get the feeling that Henry's secretary might be better at Henry's job than he is.

As the above exchange indicates, one of Henry's biggest problems is that he can't manage up at all. His issues with authority and inability to respond to the needs of others are sprinkled through the movie. Most detrimental to the current situation, he can't handle his boss, managing editor Alicia Clark, at all. Alicia is very good at a thankless job, but she hates her position and she resents Henry for making it harder on her.

Alicia: You son of a bitch. You promised me.
Henry: For God's sakes, Alicia. We're not gonna ask some news reporter to wait until after 5 to make out-of-state phone calls. It's ridiculous. I'm not gonna do it.
Alicia: Oh, fine! Let's let them make free phone sex calls too.
Henry: You mean as a kind of bonus? That's not a bad idea. Why don't you start with Phil?
Phil: Start what with Phil?
Alicia: You think my job's easy? You think it's fun firing people?
Phil: "Firing people"? Is that what you're gonna start with me?

Editor in Chief Bernie White does his best to give Alicia a pep talk when she comes in sniffing after a raise, but she is intractable.

Bernie: I know you loved running Features. I know Keighley shoved you into this administrative job you didn't want.
Alicia: I never knew how isolating it was gonna be. There are not exactly a lot of laughs around my office these days.
Bernie: You're in management. If everybody loved you, you'd be doing something wrong. But the fact is, I think you're working miracles with the job . . .  Thank you. But there's no more money for you. There's a ceiling in this business, and you're hitting your head on it.
Alicia: Okay. Fine. My contract's up in 8 months. I'd like permission to start interviewing now. You leave me no choice. That contract leaves me no choice.
Bernie: Pardon me saying this, and I know I'm no one to talk ... but the problem isn't with your contract.  ... Talk to Bruno about the decoration, renovation, whatever. Ask him to be reasonable. Your husband's a reasonable guy. Or give up the nights in town Bruno doesn't know about.
Alicia: What?
Bernie: It won't lead anywhere good. I know what I'm talking about.
Alicia: I'm gonna see Keighley tonight at the benefit. It's obvious that I'm gonna have to take this up with him directly.
Bernie: If you go over my head on this, you'll only make it worse for yourself.

Alicia, predictably, ignores Bernie's completely on-point advice and winds up confronting the publisher, Graham Keighley, at a social event and subsequently embarrassing herself when he brushes her off. She then goes on to round out her evening by firing Henry. Her priority: keeping down publishing costs. His priority: Getting the story right. 

Alicia: Given the information we had, it's right.
Henry: Yeah, but it's not right. I got a cop. I got a quote. It's wrong.
Alicia: Not today. Tomorrow it's wrong. We only have to be right for a day.
Henry: This shouldn't be semantics or money. People will read this, and they'll believe us.
Alicia: People take the "Sun" with a grain of salt. We'll run yours tomorrow.
Henry: No! Not tomorrow! Right fucking now today!
Alicia: I bet you thought it would never catch up with you-- that I don't know the shit you guys say about me. You think I don't get the bean counter jokes or understand your snide shit? You don't even have a college degree. You couldn't take the shit I put up with! You assholes think I don't know that you wait until I leave before you sneak off to the Bear's Head? Can't invite me for a lousy drink.
Henry: You jerk, it's not about you or me!
Alicia: Never thought it'd catch up with you. Well, fuck you. It catches up today. We run what we've got.

So many things wrong here.  Alicia's been in news long enough to know this merits blowing the budget. Henry's been in news long enough to know that union pressmen and truck drivers are fricking expensive. If there were any sort of reasonable employee-boss relationship here all this would have been figured out much earlier.  Newspapers push deadlines for big stories. If Alicia is as good at her job as is implied, she'd have budgeted for this sort of thing -- and she probably has, but she's pissed off at Henry not doing what he was told. Her resentment takes over, she has the upper hand and she uses it. Later, however, in trying to defend herself to McDougal, she realizes she's gotten it wrong.

McDougal: What do you want me to say? "Good job. You struck a blow for journalistic integrity today"? I can't do it. You abused your position to settle a personal score. It is what it is. Live with it. Henry was right.
Alicia: Henry was glib, that's all. I've become "everything I used to hate." What does that even mean? Henry wouldn't have a newspaper to work on if I hadn't saved it.
McDougal; Henry doesn't have a newspaper to work on. You fired him, remember?
Alicia: Oh, please! I'm ODing on righteous indignation tonight. We're not exactly the Washington Post, okay?
McDougal: No, we're not. We run stupid headlines because we think they're funny. We run maimings on the front page because we got good art. And I spend three weeks bitching about my car because it sells papers. But at least it's the truth. As far as I can remember we never, ever, ever knowingly got a story wrong. Until tonight.

Of course, while Alicia is on the phone trying to get Henry's story back on the press, she gets shot. So no good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

(And what about that press run? The presses are running with the wrong story plated when Henry shows up. They keep running through the fight, through the aftermath, through the time it takes to get to a bar and sit down and have a conversation, plus they run through the time it takes Alicia to be shot, get in an ambulance, get to a hospital - IN NEW YORK! -- and fight with a bunch of doctors over getting a phone. Surely the press run would be nearly over by the time she finally made the call, wouldn't it?)

The pater familias of the picture, of course, is Bernie, though he denies it. He is at a point in his career where he can take the long view. He acknowledges his screwups, he accepts his place, and he refuses to be pushed into roles he doesn't want. 

Henry: Look, Bernie. I know you know about the Sentinel interview. It's an assistant managing editor thing. It's really more sideways than up. You can jump in here anytime.
Bernie: What are you looking for? You want me to make it easy for you to go to another paper? You want a ride uptown? You want me to wait outside and think positive thoughts? That's not my job. My job is to keep your ass downstairs.
Henry: What am I supposed to do?
Bernie: I don't know.
Henry: It's nine to five. It's more money. It's less hours. Martha-- We're having the baby, and she gave up her job. So it's for her. That's ... OK. Not just for her. It's for me too. Bernie, you've got kids. How'd you keep doing the job?
Bernie: Don't ask marital advice from a guy with two ex-wives  and a daughter that won't speak to him. The problem with being my age is everybody thinks you're a father figure. But you're really just the same asshole you always were. You do have a problem, Henry, but it's your problem.
Henry: Thanks, Bernie. You've been a big help.

Bernie is old, he's tired, he's sick, he's a sage. He uses stories to make his points, though Alicia won't listen.

Bernie: Let me tell you a story. Sit down. Sit down. It won't take long. Very interesting. You'll like it. In '68, a bunch of us were covering the Olympics in Grenoble decided to go to the best restaurant in town. Now, the menu didn't have any prices but we were on expense account, so we figured, "Fuck it," got drunk. Somehow there ended up being a bunch of us at the table and when the cheque came. it was $5,000.
Alicia: Jesus!
Bernie: Exactly. So now we're all starting to point fingers. We're trying to remember who invited who. We're talking about going to Western Union to get money cabled. And just when it was getting really embarrassing, this funny-looking old guy at the next table called the maitre d' over. Old guy. He drew a couple of squiggly lines on a napkin signed his name, winked at us, and that was that. The old guy was Pablo Picasso, and that napkin paid our bill.
Alicia: So? I'm not sure I caught the segue here.
Bernie: The people we cover, we move in their world, but it is their world. You can't live like them. You'll never keep up. If you try to make this job about the money, you'll be nothing but miserable, because we don't get the money.Never have, never will.

On the other hand, he is still a boss.

Alicia: If we miss them, the subway is page one.
Henry: The subway is bullshit!
Bernie: You don't have it, you know it. You wanna run the story? You got five hours. Get the story. Do your job! Do your job! Don't just take a position because it's the opposite of what she says! It's like watching a bunch of sixth graders, for Christ's sake! You make damn sure Photo's at the perp walk. I mean damn sure.

But in the end, the story all comes back to Henry.  The right story hits newstands, he has a new baby, his wife forgives him, presumably he still has a job, he got his way on all of it -- and odds are he hasn't learned a damn thing. He is a journalist, after all, and we are stubborn creatures.

News Anchor: Because your whole world can change in 24 hours. 

Or, you know, not.

We Hear the Playback and It Seems So Long Ago

Newspapers, broadcast newsmagazines ... all that can be left is Newsradio.

Set at WNYX, a fictional AM news radio station in New York City, audiences met the madcap station owner and staff the same time as the station's new news director, level-headed Dave Nelson (played by Dave Foley). While Dave turns out to be less naive than his youthful appearance suggests, he never fully gains control of his co-workers. Unlike Miles Silverberg, however, he is experienced enough to recognize it and mature enough to just roll with it.

Beth: Fire him as soon as he walks out that door.
Dave: Excuse me?
Beth: Fire him right here, right now, in front of everyone. Trust me, it will help you down the line. You're not exactly establishing yourself as an authority figure with the staff.
Bill: She's right, you know.
Beth: It's like, you know how they say when it's your first day in prison, you should act crazy and beat someone with a chair so nobody will mess with you?
Dave: I've never actually heard that before, Beth.

As news director, Dave is in an unenviable middle manager sandwich slot,  snugly layered between two huge pieces of ham.  Subordinate to Dave is the egocentric, eccentric anchorman Evelyn William "Bill" McNeal, played by the brilliant (and late and sorely lamented) Phil Hartman, while Dave is answerable to  the egocentric, eccentric Jimmy James, played by the brilliant Stephen Root. The bigger exasperation for Dave is Bill, who takes great delight in showing the Midwestern rookie how it's done.

Bill: You're not in Wisconsin, Dave. The big story isn't about a cow wandering into the town square.
Dave: Bill, I worked in Milwaukee, you know. It's a city with a population of a million people.
Bill: So that must have been quite a hubbub when that cow got loose!

Clearly, Dave knows how to run a newsroom, but he has to work hard to earn any chance to do so.

Dave: Listen up, everybody, this is what we're going to do.
Bill: Standard subway crisis. We know what to do, Dave.
Dave: I didn't know there was a standard procedure for this.
Bill: Oh, sure. We send a reporter to the scene. He asks the transit police if he can go in the tunnel. They say no. He says okay. I go on the air every eight minutes and say "Still no news on that disabled train." Business as usual. Let's do it, people!
Dave: Actually, Bill, if I might, I'd like to try something a little different this time, okay?
Bill: Okay, how about this? Send reporter, transit police, tunnel-no-okay, me on air every seven minutes, blah, blah, blah. Let's do it, people!

Bill never gives an inch, but unlike Murphy Brown's almost malicious pranksterism, Bill's motivation is entirely selfish and absurdist to the point of being childish.

Dave: Have you thought about how this will make you co-workers feel?
Bill: Actually, one of the great things about the cubicle is not having to think about my co-workers at all.

Dave does put his good-boss hat on to help Bill, though -- going so far on one occasion as to kick a coffee addiction while Bill tries to quit smoking.

Dave: I just had no idea that the Patch could have side effects.
Bill: And I had no idea you're only supposed to wear one at a time.
Dave: How many were you wearing?
Bill: Fifteen, sixteen. I sort of stuck them all around my waist like a belt.

The Dave-Jimmy relationship is no less fraught with exasperation for Dave. Jimmy James is a billionaire, yet seems to enjoy micromanaging WNYX and keeping a close eye on Dave.

Jimmy: Dave, you're the boss. You're supposed to be thick-skinned.
Dave: I'm plenty thick-skinned
Jimmy: Oh yeah, I've seen thicker skin on a bowl of pudding. Here, check this out. (Puts his hand above a lit candle.)
Dave: Sir, you really don't have to do that to impress me.
Jimmy: You wanna know the secret?
Dave: Wild guess... thick skin?
Jimmy: Well, metaphysically, yes. Technically speaking, you do it 15, 16 times it kills all the nerve endings in your hand.

Further, Jimmy is seen as a loving father figure by everyone in the office, and often helps his employees learn life lessons.

Jimmy: You're sleeping with the boss now, Lisa. What do you think the staff's gonna feel about that? You know what people think about Yoko Ono.
Lisa: Yes, I do sir.
Jimmy: What about you Dave, you know what they think about Paul McCartney.
Dave: You mean John Lennon.
Jimmy: No, people liked him.

The best thing about Dave as a manager is that he has a keen sense of what he can change about his environment and a keener sense of when he needs to change his own outlook on that environment to keep some level of sanity. This is an invaluable skill to develop, especially in middle management.

Dave: Any inappropriate expenditures will be deducted from your salary in the future.
Beth: That is going too far.
Dave: No, taking a cab to New Jersey and back is going too far.
Beth: That was radio-related business.
Dave: There are plenty of places in Manhattan to buy a radio.
Beth: Dave, it was a 43% off sale. Apparently, the guy who owned the place went crazy and was slashing prices.
Dave: Well I may go crazy and slash paychecks if I see another receipt like that.

To wrap up -- do your best to stay sane and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. And now, here are two examples why you don't use cliches like that one to motivate your staff:

Dave: Bill, haven't you ever heard the expression, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?"
Bill: Dave, haven't you ever heard the expression, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then toss it in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the oranges you asked for in the first place?"

Dave: Have you ever heard the expression that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar?
Bill: Have you ever heard the expression that only a hillbilly sits around figuring out the best way to catch flies?