Managing people is never easy. There's the politics, tenure, position and that's all before you've got to the productivity and personality.
I inherited one of the most chaotic teams I've ever come across in my career. There were around 12 of them, mixed in age, gender, ability and contract type. The was no structure or authority, and the skills seemed to mismatched from the positions.
The production manager was that in name only. When asked to show me her production schedule and go through the process, I was given a checklist and a run-down of how she managed quality, sign off and delivery - making her the single point of failure.
The team was left out of the digital development conversation and as a result, were treated like they were working on a factory production line and not valued for their skills or have the ability to add value.
I'm not saying I'm Richard Branson when it comes to leadership, but it was clear where the gaps were.
I got rid of production manager role and tasked the editors with pulling together schedules, ensuring briefs are complete, getting stakeholder sign-off and pushing to live.
I made a lot of noise across the business to make sure everyone knew the value of copywriting. It started when I developed the brand tone of voice and governance strategy. From then on in, people knew what the remit was and its value.
Sounds a bit like I was wielding a hatchet, but I ensured the right skills came into the team and the deadwood (in terms of contractors) were let go. I assigned people to content editor roles, whose sole responsibility was to build and publish web pages. I also hired a team of incredibly talented copywriters who refreshed anything new being published.
The team quickly settled, they appreciated that toe-to-toe arguments in the office were a thing of the past and they had more agency over their jobs. And I updated their ways of working, using Jira and sitting in a scrum team - to get the best from them.
In those roles, people blossomed. It turned out that one of my editors who sold herself as a copywriter was more suited to a CMS role. And a clear distinction between the editor/copywriter remit was being developed across the business.
I don't believe in micro-managing, as I think it brings out the worst in people and is demotivating. I gave my team room to breathe, only coming to me with escalations.
The mark of good manager is one that develops ways of working from the bottom up and establishes a team who can function perfectly well without them there.
It's still a learning curve. And I come across difficult situations like disciplinaries and performance plans, but handling them in a transparent, pragmatic and supportive way stops defense barriers causing an atmosphere.
Regular 121s to make sure objectives are on-tracks, clear boundaries and regular communication is really all you need. The rest, like development, will evolve organically.
