Leadership – nate funaro

Get Promoted #1 – Manage Your Deadlines

Sometimes people will say to managers, “I want to get promoted.” First off, this is not the best start towards your boss (perhaps not the most professional) – maybe instead ask, “What can I do to get promoted? I’m interested in moving up.” Most of the time your boss is not just sitting around waiting for you to take the call to action and tell them you want a promotion and then immediately proceed to promote you because you were assertive. Nice try. Take responsibility and figure out what you need to do.

That’s what this series is – what things do we see as most common gaps in people as they are looking for the next move up.

The number 1 thing – people not able to manage deadlines. If you can’t hit your milestones consistently now, why should someone promote you to a job where it’s going to get worse and you have 2x, 4x, or 10x the number of spinning plates? Do you hit your deadlines? How often? Be honest. This could be holding you back, even if you aren’t getting the feedback.

So how do we fix it? There are a bunch of questions you can ask to help bridge these gaps as you take on the next project.

What’s the deadline for the current job? – Ask this question to you boss, director, producer, client, whoever has given you the work. This is what a professional does. Right away. If you don’t know when the deadline is, are you just hoping you randomly hit the target? If they don’t have a milestone for you, give them your target date so everyone is on the same page.

Can you complete it by the deadline given the resources? – Ask this question to yourself as it’s being assigned. Talk it through with your boss if needed. Again, it shows professionalism. Ask this question again as you in the midst of it and ask again as many times as needed during the process.

Take stock during the process. – This is similar to above question. Does it feel like things are running late? Can you recover and still hit the deadline? What are your options? If you see that you can’t or may not hit the deadline, shoot off a flare. Tell your boss what’s happening.

What is your history? – With similar workloads / projects, what has been the outcome before? How many times have you done this before? Once? Ten times? Two hundred? Use your experience to inform your forecast. How often did you deliver on time? If you can’t forecast, you look like an amateur. By the way, if you can’t forecast accurately and tell your boss the wrong time (overly optimistic target) with consistency, that’s a problem too.

What will it take to complete by deadline? – Assuming you’re not going to make it, what would it take to finish on time? If you had one additional person week would it land it? Do you need one more day to review material? How late will it be given the current resources? Think about needs and convey to your boss. Accuracy here is critical so your boss can help you with resources / clearing the way.

Do you have other obligations? – What else is floating around you that could affect THIS deadline? Telling your boss you are sorry but this week you had to take the kids to day camp or that you were busy on another project deadline is probably something you could have planned around. AKA it’s a ‘you’ problem. Knowing your capacity and what other creeping responsibilities you have haunting you will affect your output.

Do you have bad luck? – Does dumb, bad stuff always seem to happen to you and screw things up? Your computer eats your homework, your person always calls in sick at the wrong time, you got all the bad client notes, etc. Who cares. Your boss doesn’t want your sob story excuses. There’s always going to be some kind of battle. If you are a bad luck kinda person, have some contingency plans. Be like the Boy Scouts – be prepared.

Next level move: Capacity – Know how fast you can potentially work vs the assigned project. Most people just work at a default pace vs an approximate deadline until the project is done and use up all the time they have (Parkinson’s Law). By having awareness of true capacity / potential, you can more accurately predict what projects will hit (or not hit) deadlines AND if you can adjust based on how much room you have left to move.

By the way – answer these questions honestly. If you lie to yourself, it just makes you bad at deadlines. You get better by failing, seeing where the gap was, and adjusting.

Tough questions here but if you want things easy, you probably shouldn’t be promoted. It doesn’t get easier as you move up. Let’s get to work.

Remote Work Challenges – Manager Edition

It’s been a few years and we all know about the positives of remote work (no commute, more personal time, working in your pajamas), but we rarely talk about the challenges of working remotely. Lots of remote workers and even remote managers are cautious about discussing the topic because they personally don’t want to go back to in person work. As the Covid health risks begin to diminish, the original necessity for us working remotely is also starting to fade away.

While I don’t think we are putting the toothpaste back in the tube anytime soon in getting rid of all remote work, I do think it is important to review some of the challenges that we are seeing. This is more from the perspective of a manager and the uphills of organizing people / projects remotely. There are no immediate and easy solutions for most of these issues, but perhaps by identifying some of these we can begin the problem solving process.

Clunky Communication

Conversations that used to be a simple leaning over to someone sitting next to you or poking your head in the door to the next office over are now layered affairs – checking to see if the other person is around, then if they have time for a phone or video call, then setting the time, and then finally having a weird video call to answer a 10 second question. Even just sending a message to someone can take minutes or hours to respond. It’s what I affectionately refer to as “messages to Mars” – beaming out a message and waiting for response randomly later.

No one likes being on camera all day – that often causes us to act in creating our stilted persona, so we are creating unintentional additional barriers through video calls. We all know that while the tech of video calls is great, it’s very limiting vs what we see in person in terms of body language, emotion, whether a person is understanding – it’s a flimsy replica of reality. Basically communication has become more inefficient and in turn, we are communicating less overall and also less effectively.

Video Meetings Shenanigans

People are constantly multitasking in meetings now, because unfortunately it’s now acceptable to look at a screen – in fact it’s necessary for us to do a video meeting. Remember the old days of an in person meeting, everyone sitting in a conference room. If you were in there, on your laptop clacking away at keys while the VP / CEO was talking you would get yelled at and / or look like an idiot. Now, for some reason, we accept this behavior (and probably do some of it ourselves).

You end up with a room full of people paying even less attention than they did in the past. Meetings should be a time for problem solving, communication and collaboration – all that gets increasingly diminished when everyone is multitasking during the call.

Training Troubles

Depending on the job we are training people for, we have seen a significant increase in time to train to competency. We end up going over things numerous times that would have been simple to teach before. Part of that is the inherrent inefficiency of remote learning.

There’s two big factors – one, it’s boring to learn while looking at a screen. Trying to follow how someone is doing something while watching a cursor bounce around in a screen share to a database app has got to be the most boring, torture adjacent learning possible.

Second, as the person teaching, you have to be aware of how the person is learning and if they are getting the material down. Reducing the video feed to a postage stamp on your screen, your ability to detect student comprehension is probably going to be borderline terrible (also see prior point – the person you are teaching is probably multitasking). There’s more nuanced nonsense than this, but you get the idea – training remotely is slower and more cumbersome, and in turn costing more money and time to get our people up to speed.

Collaboration Gaps

No matter what someone tells you, the collaboration we have over video calls is not the same as in person – it’s never going to be as good. You can’t see the body language, people are self conscious of how they look on camera. They are distracted by chats, emails, and the Nordstrom / REI sale. All that stuff is disconnecting us because most people aren’t doing ‘airplane mode’ and focusing in meetings.

When we are in person, there is a weight and presence to being in a room with others. There is physical energy and focus to being in a room together and brainstorming, jamming on ideas / scripts / boards, and it’s just more fun. Here is something no one has ever talked about – how fun it is to collaborate on a video call and use a digital whiteboard. Video calls are an ok stopgap when necessary, but it’s a limited quality vs. in person collaboration.

Morale Taking a Hit

Have you noticed lower morale on your team? If you haven’t, you might want to take a second look. While people might initially prefer the conveniences of working remotely, it may not be entirely good for them to work in an ongoing isolated state in their pajamas from the bed / couch. For some people on our teams, the bulk of their social interactions might only be at the workplace (which is now extra limited). Try to take a good look at how the morale actually is – not how you or your team pretends or wants it to be.

There are probably more than a few factors contributing to this lower morale in the remote work world – it’s a complex set of factors. What we can agree on: lower morale means less happy employees, lower productivity, worse creativity – overall we are looking at more expensive and lower quality work. It’s not the best.

Blending of Life and Work

Our commute used to be the boundary of life and work. Sure, there might be times we take work home or work on a weekend, but those were typically exceptions. Now with remote work, we can (but probably should not) roll out of bed and start work. We often end up working a little earlier than usual and / or a little later. People send us work messages at all hours of the day without a second thought.

The lines of demarcation of where work begins and ends are blurring in an unhealthy way – we now have one big messy pile of life-work bookended by a weekend where we might have even more work tasks seeping into the crevices of what little free time left that would normally be protected.

So What’s The Answer?

Definitely not a lot of easy answers here, and I am by no means advocating a full time “normal” return to work. We should certainly take a real honest look at these physical, emotional, productivity, quality and financial costs of having people working remotely full time.

Can we work remotely? Yes? Can we be as effective and creative as in person work? Maybe not as much as we think (or rationalize). Are there benefits to working remote? Of course. Is it worth going back to full time in person work? Perhaps not. It’s a complex set of questions that we should be asking as we head into this next chapter of work.

Are You Using The Right Tools?

During my college years, I worked in a machine shop part time and learned how to use all kinds of different tools. Inevitably I would screw things up, which resulted in me quickly learning what I did wrong and how to use the right tool for the job. Three tools may do the job, but perhaps only one will work the best, improving accuracy and efficiency (and reducing headaches). Lucky for me, veteran machinists were there to help and tell me which tool to use. This meant as I learned, there wasn’t as much trial and error on my part (and less for them to deal with and fix).

This older Japanese machinist that everyone called ‘grandpa’ would look over my shoulder and see if what I was doing was right. He’d give a fatherly approval nod and a grunt if I was doing it right and if I was doing it wrong, he would make fun of me. Basically he was like a real life, smart ass Mister Miyagi. I’ve never seen another guy work a metal lathe with the accuracy and craftsmanship he did. I appreciated grandpa and the other machinists looking out for me and teaching me the ropes as a young, completely inexperienced, green machine shop grunt.

Which tool to use?

Unfortunately for us (especially in this remote work world), we probably aren’t going to have someone looking over our shoulder (like the veteran machinists back at the shop) to help us with the right tools to use. Additionally, the more you move up in job roles, the less help you are going to get determining how the tools work and what tools to use. This all sounds rather bleak, doesn’t it? How do we figure out what tools to use then?

When you are new to a process / skill / job, you likely will not start with a good idea of what tools to use or possibly even what tools are available. You have to try out different tools and see how they work. You also use available resources and learn from others. The lead editor has been doing this awhile, she might know some tricks – go pick her brain. What website, book or video has a tutorial / help on what you are struggling with? Who knows how to do this?

Sometimes the tool won’t be obvious, or sometimes it might be personalized for how you work. If it is based on preferences – your natural talents / weaknesses, contexts and inclinations, it will naturally drive you towards certain tools (or away from others). Other times your tool choice will be process driven – there is a definitive best tool or required tool and there isn’t a question of what to use. In these cases, hopefully someone tells you what to use, but they may not necessarily train you in how to use or the best way to use (you have to dig that out on your own through learning and execution).

Is the tool working (for this task)?

The way to understand if your tools are working is easy: just look at the results (isn’t that always the answer?). And please – do a hard look at what the end product is, don’t idealize and sugar coat what might not be the best so you can feel better about the mediocre job you did. You might consider asking friends, peers, bosses if your methods are working effectively. You can always lie to yourself (or might be too close to the product), hopefully others will give you good / honest feedback. If you have real, quantifiable data to reflect on your progress – use it. The old saying, “What gets measured, gets managed.” works here.

When you are using the right tools with consistency and improvement, you will see good results and progress. You should also be getting a paired decrease in gaps and errors. If you are instead seeing ongoing just barely meeting standards or getting below standard quality (or declines), it might be time to review your tools and update.

Avoiding Problems

Most of the time we talk about the importance of things like problem solving and crisis management. We celebrate the traits of a leader who can get us through catastrophe. These are exciting to talk about – big battles and war stories.

It’s not as dramatic to talk about the problem that never materialized because the director knew how to avoid it entirely. We don’t say, “That guy sure knows how to spot a bad deal.” It’s a type of business aikido that’s a little difficult to comprehend. It’s typically unseen, not recorded, hard to recognize, and definitely not exciting.

Marshall Goldsmith talks about this idea in his book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”. That book made me realize how important and also how unrecognized this skill was.

What’s the best way to not get punched in the face? Don’t be there. It’s not learning to defend a punch, it’s learning to avoid the fight entirely.

We are not talking about ignorantly avoiding existing problems that are already on your doorstep, this is only for avoiding potential problems that are on the horizon before they arrive / materialize in your world.

The skill of avoiding problems comes from preparation, repetition, knowing the field and then experience takes it the rest of the way. It’s difficult to describe, because you already have to already know or at least have a sense of what you are looking for.

Someone who is great at their job, they can see things shaping before the problems fully materialize. They calculate options that are never used to find the best way. They avoid issues entirely – no one knows the issues were even there. It’s like a reverse opportunity radar.

Some people wait for problems to show up on their doorstep, others look for problems to unearth and address. The next level operator scans the field for potential problems and finds the best available path that avoids the issues without incident.

There’s not a lot of rewards or heroism in avoiding problems. ‘Hey boss, look at this big problem I avoided!’ No one cares, get back to work. Learn this skill and people will sometimes see you as ‘lucky’ or you are always on the ‘easy project’. That’s fine. As Jim Rohn said, “Results is the name of the game.”

Listen More

There’s one thing I tell myself to do lately: listen more.

I’m appealing to those of us who veer towards not listening or maybe those of us who talk too much.

As a leader or manager, we can often wrongly think our job is primarily to tell people what to do. That’s a very simplistic way of thinking on its own, but let’s just talk about what it means WHEN you do have to tell people what to do.

If you don’t listen, you won’t know if there is retention / understanding / comprehension. You taught or gave orders, they acknowledged, and you watched in slow motion as it got done wrong because YOU weren’t listening originally. YOU weren’t aware they just didn’t understand.

By listening we can learn and discover. Listening allows us to find problems and then hear about the situation to understand the issue at greater depth.

Often we don’t listen with intent or even listen at all. Listening creates or leads to awareness, empathy, and intelligence.

Listen. Think. Listen some more, and THEN ask questions. I often feel like I have to fill the dead space in a conversation, but perhaps leaving that gap open is creating for the other person to share an idea they would not normally or for the other person to think (it also gives room for YOU to think).

Sometimes listening is just creating the space for someone to communicate feelings, frustration. Often there is subtext behind that, and it’s great to find understanding when we can. We don’t necessarily have to solve every issue we listen to – sometimes people just want to be heard.

You could go on a deep dive with this concept and say that it’s not simply about listening but about being open. Be open to ideas, be open to people. Listen more.

Move Slow and Follow Rules

I tried to think of what would be the opposite of ‘Move fast and break things’. Zuckerberg’s often quoted ideal is interpreted (or misinterpreted) a thousand different ways. I like the simplest interpretation – challenge things, try a lot of stuff and fail fast (so you get to the ‘right’ solution faster).

Seems like a sign that you would see hung up by a public pool

“Move Slow and Follow Rules” probably isn’t a good thing to automatically put in play – seems like almost a default setting we often see on most productions.

Move slow and you get less done. Sure there are times you need to move slow. You need to probably move slow if you are learning. You might also need to move slow(er) if accuracy or quality is not at spec. If neither of those are at play, you should consider moving faster (generally speaking, people could embrace a little more urgency on most shows).

Carefully follow your established rules and you will likely get the same results. Sometimes, you want the exact same results (assuming things are going well and high quality), but most times we want better results and linked improvement. You get that from small iterations, adaptations to the rules. You want exponential results? You better be ok with breaking some things.

‘Move slow and follow the rules’ is a good thing to tell the novice, someone inexperienced, or someone struggling with quality. Otherwise, I’m always going to recommend we take a good look at things, move faster and adapt.

How Are We Doing With Remote Training

Training in the covid / remote era is going to take longer and cost more – finding efficiencies and planning is essential

Often we talk about burnout and efficiency during the remote work / Covid era, but something we don’t talk about much is the significant increase in training time. It is a hidden cost that should not be ignored as the effects can greatly reduce the effectiveness of our crews.

Put simply – Working remotely increases communication time and transferring information is generally inefficient. Training, is at its core dependent on communication. If we do the napkin math here, it shows that training is going to see slowdown in most instances.

On our shows and what we are seeing around the industry, it can take upwards of 50% more time to get employees in training to competency. In addition to the learning time for the trainee, the people teaching the employees are having to dedicate more time to the effort, tying up team members and managers who could be addressing other issues. The cost here to the production is significant, particularly on new productions where there is large scale onboarding.

Here’s a sample of things we are missing: We do not have the ‘osmosis’ of employees being in the same location, nor are they seeing the cadence and quality of work of their peers in real time. They can’t lean over their neighbor’s desk or drop by a director’s office. No one can lean over their shoulder to explain a shot or a technical element. Strangely enough the ‘water cooler’ moments would also create lots of talk that ultimately solves issues. These all streamline training and reduce the friction that we typically see today.

We have not yet discovered any large scale solutions to apply here – instead we have to target new methods of training and create opportunities to replicate some of the circumstances we had in studio when we were all in one location. Creating online ‘water cooler’ areas where employees can gather, dedicated and more frequent small scale / digestible training sessions, and more tailored training programs can help alleviate some of the issues outlined above, but it’s never going to be as easy as in person training.

What we cannot do is expect training to work at the same speed and effectiveness as we had before we started this remote era. This is something that leaders have to push up the ladder so we get the appropriate support in place. We must evaluate and assign the correct time and resources and not create unrealistic expectations (which creates additional unnecessary stress) with the goal of supporting our teams to do the best work possible.

BTW – Stay Out of the Way

Advice to Managers – Stop monkeying with the machine

Here’s what I tell most new managers – let’s call it proactive guidance.

If a crew is running well and morale is good, then stay out of their way.

If you want to do something (if you feel like you aren’t contributing enough), then figure out how to make your crew’s life easier. Start by listening and watching.

Get them better tools / resources OR clear roadblocks for them. Often young leaders think they always need to be involved – they tend to micromanage to either assert their position or to feel useful. This is a mistake.

Sometimes crews might actually need training, but more often it is just a nudge that’s needed. Unless the wheels are falling off the cart, training may not be the move. Just keep them pointed in the right direction.

The skipper lets the crew do their job and stays out of their way so they can do it well. She watches the crew to see where they need help and continues scan the horizon making sure they are headed the right way.