Handling people problems in a small newsroom

Editors note: This article was combined with two pieces (first and second) originally published on My News Biz, created by James Breiner. You can sign up for his newsletter here.

If you are leading a team in a small media organization, you need to get the best out of your people. Everyone has to be a contributor. 

This is not just a selfish thing. You get the best out of people by helping them develop their own talents, overcome obstacles, and reach their own professional goals. 

Ask questions, don’t give solutions

If a member of your team comes to you with a problem — for example, “I don’t think Karl is showing enough commitment to his work” or “the technical staff is being rude to our customers” — you will not help the person by providing a solution. 

• First, the solution you propose might work for you but not for your colleague. You have different talents and experience. 
• Second, providing a solution denies the person the chance to grow, to develop confidence in problem solving.  
• Third, if the solution you propose is too hard for your colleague to execute, you will probably hear a lot of excuses and procrastination. Your colleague might not be able to figure out how to do it. 
• Fourth, if your imposed solution fails, your colleague can avoid taking responsibility for its failure, which is a bad lesson.  

Finding a way out

When a colleague comes to you with a problem, it usually means they see themselves as boxed in. Every solution looks impossible or has too many negatives. Your job as a coach or mentor in this situation is to ask questions that help the person to see beyond the barriers, to find alternative solutions, and to gain the courage to take action.

Much of what follows comes from my own experience in working with employees in a news media company. Among my guides were John Whitmore’s book “Coaching for Performance” and an executive coach I worked with for several years, Alan Dobzinski.

The best way to help is to ask questions that raise the awareness of your colleague about the problem, to see it in new ways, to consider possibilities that did not occur to them. A good question is one that makes a person stop and think. This is the socratic teaching method. A yes-no question doesn’t usually help. 

The method

• Ask your colleague to describe the problem objectively, without opinions.
• Ask for evidence or data that supports this view of things.
• Dig deeper into the problem to see if your colleague is either missing a key element or is avoiding a discussion of the root cause of the problem.
• Ask the colleague to walk you through potential solutions and why they may or may not work. 
• Ask who should be accountable and what your colleague is willing to do. 

Possible questions for seeing the problem objectively

• What have you seen that makes you think it’s a problem?
• How long have you observed this?
• What impact does it have on you or other employees?
• What do clients or colleagues have to say about this?
• How is it affecting you or the organization? In other words, how big a problem is it?

Possible questions about evidence

• What are the factors that you see contributing to the problem? 
• How do you measure them?
• What is the data that shows how this is this affecting our organization? e.g. client retention, employee retention, revenues, profits?
• How reliable is this information?

Possible questions for going deeper

• What are the risks of doing something?
• What are the risks of doing nothing?
• What are your worst fears about this situation?
• What could you do to overcome the obstacles?

Possible questions about what was considered or tried

• What worked, what didn’t work and why?
• If you haven’t tried any solutions, what held you back?
• Walk me through the possible solution scenarios, pointing out the strengths and obstacles of each.

Possible questions of accountability

• On a scale of 0 to 100%, what percentage of the responsibility for this problem are you willing to accept?
• What are you willing to do to solve the problem?
• What do you think others should do?
• Who would you like to help you?
• What should be the first step, and when should it be taken?
• What do you think should be the deadline for action?
• What help do you want from me?

Our two slippery problems 

The two problems mentioned above are deliberately vague and slippery, which is exactly why they are difficult and typical: “I don’t think Karl is showing enough commitment to his work” or “the technical staff is being rude to our customers.” 

Problem No. 1: “I think Karl is not committed to his work.”

Define the problem. 

What you want to do now is help your colleague see what is really going on. In other words, what is reality as opposed to opinions, hearsay, assumptions, gossip. Ask for evidence. Some potential questions:

What have you observed that makes you think Karl is not committed?

“He arrives 30 minutes late every day, he talks to his girlfriend on the phone all day long, he always seems to be playing video games.”

Dig deeper for information. The evidence just presented is superficial, based on impressions. At this point, you might ask for some evidence that is more concrete, some documentation. 

How often have you seen this yourself? 

Every day? A few times a week? A few times a month? 

What makes you think this is a problem? 

What do other employees and our clients think of Karl’s performance? 

How do you know this? 

You mentioned when Karl arrives at work; when does he leave?

To be honest, even if everything said about Karl is true, it is superficial. It has nothing directly to do with Karl’s performance. So the real question is, What are Karl’s performance measures? 

Ask for measurement, data. On employee performance issues, very often a supervisor will get stuck on superficial measures like the ones above. The real issue is, How do you measure the employee’s performance? By quantity of work? Quality of work? Meeting of deadlines? Meeting clients’ expectations? Meeting fellow employee expectations? 

A better question: What are your performance standards for this employee?

If there are no criteria, the first step should  be to establish some that align with the company’s ethics, values and financial goals.  

How have you defined the quantity of work the person is supposed to do? 

How do you give feedback on the quality of the work? 

What are the deadlines that have to be met? 

Are the clients happy or complaining? 

Are fellow employees happy or complaining?

What are your options: Ask the person you are coaching to come up with some possible solutions and to walk them through all their implications. A good question for you to ask is, “Have you considered this option or this possibility? What is the possibility that other members of your team have a solution?”

The solution might come from defining clearer expectations of the employee involved, clear expectations for deadlines, clear expectations for relations with other employees and clients.

Accountability: Explore the issues of who is responsible for what, the timelines and the consequences for not performing. Establish some measures for how you will know whether you have made progress on the problem. As the boss, you need to make sure that your colleague follows through.  

Problem 2: “Our technical staff is rude to our salespeople.”

Define the problem: 

What do you mean by rude?

Who on the technical staff is being rude? 

Who are they being rude to? 

Give some examples of rudeness. 

Ask for data: 

How often does it occur? Hourly, daily, weekly? 

Which staff members are most often involved? 

What documentation is there of complaints? 

How is this affecting our other employees, our clients, our suppliers?

Dig deeper: 

What is the history of conflict between these two departments? 

What are the causes of friction? 

What structural problems are there in the office that cause friction — deadlines, access to equipment, disruption of routines, disruption of work space? 

Sometimes friction comes from access to a copier or fax machine, failure to respect others’ work spaces, dumping work on a department at the last minute, requiring another department to work late or weekends. Dig deep. Find out what is really going on. 

What are your options: 

Get your colleague to come up with some solutions, walking you through them, discussing the pluses and minuses.

Accountability: AGAIN, Go to the questions above and explore the issues of who is responsible for what, the timelines and the consequences for not performing. Establish some measures for how you will know whether you have made progress. As the boss, you need to make sure that your colleague follows through.

Leading by coaching

I used this style of leadership by coaching for two decades. Previously, as an editor, I  used the leadership-by-command method. The command style is often necessary on deadline, and it is effective as far as it goes. Its fundamental effectiveness comes from employees’ fear of disappointing or angering the boss. It doesn’t focus on developing people’s skills

Coaching produces much better results over the long haul than command style. By developing your people, you gain more helping hands. The more leaders you have in your organization, the more problem solvers you have, the more your organization will grow. 

Stop being a fireman

At the business publication where I was publisher, the coaching method produced significant measurable improvements in revenues, profits, profit margins, employee retention, client retention, and improved feedback from employees on attitude surveys.

For me personally, using the coaching method reduced stress. I had people all around me helping solve problems. 

You might say, “But it takes too much time to do this, and I don’t have any time!” The choice is yours. You can spend all your time putting out fires or you can invest some time in teaching fire prevention. Using this method, I spent less time putting out fires and more time building the strategy for the future. 

Do less. Lead more. 

Source of the cover photo: https://unsplash.com/

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