By Jessie Scott, member, ACN Board of Directors
Last year, I shared five things I learned during my first year as editor in chief at Successful Farming. I stopped the article at five to keep it from getting too lengthy, but there were several other lessons I had outlined. That was convenient when Bill Spiegel asked for another article for the Byline. (When Bill asks, you say yes!) This is part two on what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown as a leader.
- Give Specific Feedback
I’ve sat in several sessions over the years at Ag Media Summit about how designers and writers can work better together. I know it’s a cardinal sin to tell a designer that you don’t like something without any additional context. And yet, when I started working more closely with our creative director, Matt Strelecki, on cover designs and layouts for feature articles, I found those very words slipping out of my mouth.
As my design vocabulary was more limited than I would have liked it to be, Matt was patient in guiding me through design elements so I could be more specific. “I don’t like it” turned into: “Let’s try a photo illustration so it’s more realistic,” or “The logo is getting lost in that illustration, what can we do to make it stand out more?” (Answer: Add a gradient and blur the illustration slightly.)
The same advice is true for managers giving direction to team members. If you assign someone a story or a project and the end result isn’t what you were hoping for, go back and look at your instructions. In hindsight, I have found several times where my directions were at worst bad, and at best vague and open to interpretation. That’s a good time to apologize for not being more clear and work to do better next time. On that note…
- Own Up to Your Mistakes
I’ve seen it over and over again in entrepreneurial articles: Failing is healthy and good because it means you are trying new things. But for as many times as I tell myself that, I hate to fail. And I hate to make mistakes and be wrong.
That said, as a leader, I work hard to acknowledge and own up to the mistakes I make because I want our staff to know it’s okay for them to make mistakes too. If my feedback was vague, the instructions weren’t clear, or I forgot to follow up, I own up to it (one-on-one or in an editorial staff meeting), correct it, and pledge to do better next time.
- You’re the Boss. Make a Decision.
By nature, I’m not the most decisive person. I like to weigh my options, get feedback, and consider alternatives. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with that process, it is time consuming. And some days, it feels like there are dozens or hundreds of decisions I need to make.
When I’m dragging my feet on making one, Matt will tell me, “You’re the boss. Make a decision.”
To be honest, I sort of hate that response. I don’t like to think of myself as a dictator making all of the decisions. But I appreciate Matt’s point: At the end of the day, there needs to be a decision on which story is going to be the cover or what the final title is. I make the best decision I can at that moment, give direction, and we move on to the next project. That’s good advice – even if you’re not the boss.
- Lead With Empathy
If you have a team member not performing at their best, lead with empathy. Ask them how they are and give them an opportunity to share what’s going on.
One of the things I’ve found most surprising as I started managing a larger team was the number of team members at any given time who are going through heavy, hard things in their personal lives. I recognize the trust that my team puts in me to share what’s going on and how that may or may not be impacting their work.
I’ve also learned to recognize that my job as a manager is not to help fix those situations. My job is to ask what team members need, provide flexibility where I can, and create a safe, stable working environment. I can’t do anything about the crazy that’s going on in the world or in their world, but I can do my best to make sure Successful Farming is a good place to work.
- Listen to the Reader
I’ve spent the majority of my career working on the digital side of publishing. And while you can argue the pros and cons of digital versus print, there is one thing I love about digital: the instant feedback on whether or not an article resonates with the audience.
Print is harder. Without analytics at the ready for every article, you have to rely on reader feedback.
When we ran the cover story “What’s Coming Down the Pipe?” last year, I was really curious to see what reader feedback we would get. (The goal of the article was to give farmers a better understanding of the issues surrounding carbon capture and sequestration pipelines for the ethanol industry.) And farmers did not disappoint:
- “How do pipelines carrying CO2 qualify for eminent domain? They serve only to enrich their investors.”
- “To say that these pipelines pose no serious threat to the environment or its inhabitants is fake.”
- “In my opinion, the survival of ethanol has nothing to do with carbon pipelines.”
- “A five-page article about carbon pipelines and not one word about viable alternatives.”
- “I have skin in this game. I farm and the Summit pipeline is scheduled to run exactly through the middle.”
We used that feedback to determine we were going to turn our carbon pipeline coverage into a series. New Products Editor Alex Gray, who wrote the first story, and Business Management Editor Cassidy Walter are tackling the topic. Two of the follow-ups ran already, with additional ones coming out in March and July. That list will likely grow as the reader feedback keeps rolling in.
– Scott is editor-in-chief of Successful Farming