Art Directors Club of NJ Blog

View from Behind the Desk:
Insight to Managing Up and Down

During the course of a career, you may cross the paths of many managers and many management styles. This undoubtedly will have an affect on the development of your own management style as one progresses through ranks from a sole contributing designer to creative director.

There are those that whose style is to solely focus on managing up – where the emphasis is on their manager and their manager’s expectations. While these type of individuals tend to make their bosses very happy, the management of the their staff is typically relegated to any information passed down is on a need-to-know basis. The staff is generally uninformed to current events that occur within the studio or firm, beyond the tasks specifically assigned to them. Team moral tends to suffer as well.

Then you have managers who primary goal is to make their staff happy and earn their trust. While the effort is quite noble, it can be a challenge to balance managing your job, the staff’s workflow and the personalities of the team. There is also the potential to end up in that large, yet uncomfortable grey area of being the friend versus the manager. Additionally, your job isn’t going to get any easier if you do not have an open dialogue with the person who manages you -- so I would suggest you keep the resume updated.

That said, strive to strike a balance between open dialogue with your management and your staff. Ideally, you want to ensure your manager is aware of any issues or challenges with your staff and that you have a firm grip of the short- and long-term business goals. You also want your staff to be well informed of the challenges that you and the firm encounter on a daily basis.

Here are some key items to keep in mind:

Managing Up
Ensure your manager is aware of how you are working with your staff, both project and personnel related. You should try to cover accomplishments (the good) as well as challenges (the bad) and guard against becoming judgmental on what is or isn’t an issue.

Be solutions oriented; discuss challenges you are having and how you are managing through them. You want to avoid putting your manager in a position where they will have to micro-manage your issues.

Managing Down
Set up frequent one-on-one meeting with your staff. Take the time to set up and schedule reoccurring appointments, avoiding the spur of the moment or last minute meetings. You want your staff to see that you are setting aside time to check in with them.

Make it clear that this is their meeting and they should come prepared (including bringing a note pad!). You want them to be prepared to discuss work, projects, design (general topics) or personal growth. Encourage them to bring in samples or articles that they find interesting. You really want to avoid doing all of the talking for what is essentially their time. For these one-on-one meetings your primary role is to listen first, then share your thoughts.

Encourage your staff to be solutions oriented as well. They should feel comfortable discussing their challenges, but they need to think through potential solutions. You must keep in mind that your staff is responsible for their career growth and development – you (as the manager) are here to assist them in reaching their goals.

Close the meeting with an update of the projects you are working on. Do not assume your staff is fully aware of your daily workload. Chances are, they might know about half of the projects or initiatives you’re supporting.

Conclusion
Transparency goes along way toward making your job easier. Ensuring communication flows above and below you can really benefit team morale and your own job satisfaction.

Peter Napp is the Design Director at Black Rock and an ADCNJ Board Member. You can read more about Peter in the Winter Edition of the ADCNJ Newsletter, visit www.adcnj.org and download the latest issue. © Copyright Peter Napp 2010, All rights reserved.