SuperVision

My friend Kevin Benz, news director of News Austin, headed up an RTNDA@NAB convention session titled "No  ***holes in Your Newsroom." He quoted heavily from the entertaining and helpful book by Stanford's Robert Sutton on the topic, in which Sutton calls for leaders to develop a rule against jerks in the workplace. I recommend the book.

Benz acknowledged that challenging bullies and jerks can be difficult for colleagues and even for managers. He maintained that newsroom cultures can allow them to thrive -- if the culture values the product over the people.

"No one has ever put on a great newscast with sub par people. Put people over the product," Benz said.

Some of his tips for enforcing a newsroom rule against bullies:

• State your anti-jerk rule clearly and act on it regularly.
  
• Get rid of the chronic offenders fast.
• Treat the offenders as incompetent employees.
• Make sure managers don't become bullies by having job descriptions that emphasize skills like coaching and mentoring -- not just delivering the best newscast at any cost.
• Manage in the moment. Deal with problem behaviors immediately.
• Confront constructively. Model and teach it. Attack problems, not people, when you deal with problem behavior.
• Encourage people to disagree civilly. Learn how to have difficult conversations that are aimed at finding solutions, not just winning or losing.

If managing conflict isn't your strong suit, here's a column from the SuperVision archives that might help you.

I like Kevin Benz's admonition to the group: "employee performance" and "treatment of others" are not separate things.