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You ever look back at life—say, when your brain pings you awake at 3 a.m.—and cringe as you relive a season of your past? No? Just me?
Well, when I think of my first two years as a manager of a team, I wince. And want to reach out to those direct reports with a formal apology. That’s how bad it is. So what is this fail that replays itself over and over again? My inability to invest in junior editors and delegate to their strengths.
Working in media at the time, I had really gotten into the “content velocity” models that had taken over digital: Produce as much content, as fast as you can, to scale as quickly as possible. As a result, we were all working round the clock, nonstop, trying to churn out as many stories and videos as we could to get eyeballs (which would convert to ad sales and affiliate deals). There was no time to teach people the ropes! You had to jump on this speeding train, get it together, and go, go, go, because none of us had time to breathe, let alone stop and develop a writer. If you couldn’t keep up, I judged you, because I had one cookie cutter archetype of the “ideal employee” and how much content they could produce in a day, and I thought we all had to fit it completely.
Anyone who couldn’t produce the six to ten stories a day—or three to four features—that had been dictated as “normal” was someone who needed to figure out how to be more efficient. But I didn’t have the time to teach anyone how to do that! I had my own content quota to hit! As a manager, I should have pushed back and scaled back the content I produced to focus on my people. Deep down, I knew strengthening new writers’ reporting skills would mean I’d spend less time editing each story, but I kept thinking that I should just tackle this story first or slam through these edits now, then I could invest in people later. But later never came, because I didn’t make time for it.
On top of that, I considered ‘delegate’ a dirty word. I wanted to prove to my team that I was a team player, never afraid to roll up my sleeves and do anything they’d have to do. “Delegating” as a manager made me feel like I was slacking, when really, I was looking at it all wrong.
It took me a while to realize I was a bottleneck, insecurely trying to prove my worth by doing as much as possible.
The editor who could only write one feature a day? She had an excellent eye for design and packaging; I should have reduced her writing workload and pivoted her role to focus more on improving the design of stories across the board.
The intern who needed reporting help? She could write lightning-fast; I should’ve committed to regular one-on-ones to focus on interviews and sussing out quality studies and research for stories. Instead of churning out as many stories as she could in a day, that time could have made each piece have more depth, insight and provoke better conversations with our audience.
It took me a while to realize I was a bottleneck, insecurely trying to prove my worth by doing as much as possible—to the detriment of my team and the brand as a whole. It was a tough pill to swallow; harder still to jump off the hamster wheel of CONTENT ALL THE TIME and focus on building up those around me.
I actually had to take a drastic measure, changing jobs just to reset myself, break my bad habits and finally get out of my own way. While I regret I couldn’t seem to do this without leaving, when I walked into a new role with a clean slate, there weren’t any preset expectations of me or how I should act.
I wasn’t the machine editor, so I took things a little slower, focusing on people first. What did they need? What were their goals and challenges? Could we streamline their workload through subtraction, being more efficient overall? Most importantly, what was each person’s secret superpower, and how could we play to that to achieve our goals?
That last question has been crucial; it’s what I come back to whenever I start feeling the itch to obsess over metrics alone, judge or hustle for self-worth by doing, doing, doing. And you know what? It’s been freeing.
Lead Photo: Candace Braun Davison
