Hank Gilman - You Cant Fire Everyone: And Other Lessons from an Accidental Manager

Table of Contents

Im always impressed with authors who can totally reproduce conversations, word for word, from two decades ago. Ive tried to figure out how they do it. The only way I can think of is that they went through life expecting to write a book. So they either took good notes or carried a tape recorder with themand had it on most of the time. They also spent a lot of money on batteries. I guess this is possible, but I never did it.

The conversations in this book are reproduced based on fragments of conversations. In other words: theyre probably not 100 percent accurate, but they do indeed capture the essence of the exchange between the subject and me.

Also: some of the names of the people who appear in this book have been changed. I use real names when the person is a quasi-public figure, or when I say somethingor describe a scenethat makes them look good. As I say in the introduction, Im not keen on making anyone look bad or giving them the TMZ treatment unless its necessary. Im not writing about politicians or celebrities, after all. Not that they deserve to be ridiculed either. I certainly dont mind making myself look bad. And that does happen. Youll see if you get that far.

If you like this book, thank the Internet. If you hate it, blame the Internet. A few years ago, I was pondering my future and thinking about the pathetic state of print journalism and the slow death of anything resembling serious reporting in the age of the blog. Was my career, at fifty-six, at an end? Was I a dinosaur unwilling to come to grips with the new world order in my business? Great jobs at The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, and Fortune aside, was it all a waste? I wondered if I could survive in a world of recycled stories and waterskiing squirrels. (If you dont know what Im talking about, Google Twiggy the Waterskiing Squirrel and youll understand exactly why I was so afraid.) Had I done anything worthwhile all these years outside of making a damn good living? What was my exit plan?

If you know anything about journalists, you know they always think about exit plans. Even before the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter, we were paranoid about losing our jobs. We always have been insecure. Many of us turn to jobs in the public relations business because we think that the skills are somehow the samewriting and talking. But it rarely works well. Ex-reporters, because theyre embarrassed that they left the profession, tend to spend the first part of their pitch explaining to you that they used to be journalists, as if youre going to run a lousy story because you feel some bond with them. Real PR people do not apologize for what they do.

But PR was never for me. Its too corporate, and Im not polished enough to have to present myself to people all day. I dont dress well, most of the time I dont use the right fork, and I rarely talk in complete sentences.

Writing a book is another popular exit strategy for journalists. Ive always avoided writing a book because there are so many bad ones out there. I came close once, hoping to write a biography of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, before someone, one of my bosses, in fact, beat me to it.

So why did I write this book? Is this my exit strategy? Well, no. I decided to write a book because I found a topic that I both understood and cared about: management. I basically did an inventory of my career. Ive been a rock-solid, major-league journalist at some of the best publications known to man. I didnt win the Pulitzer Prize, but, then again, Ted Williams never won a World Series. The people I worked withand helpedbrought home some pretty nice trophies, though. So maybe I had something to do with that? I was a good coach; a good editor, working with living legends like Jane Bryant Quinn and Robert Samuelson of Newsweek and Allan Sloan, now at Fortune. Maybe there was a book to do about being a good boss? My business was perfect fodder. It was, and is, in turmoil and filled with volatile and creativeand sometimes really meanpeople. The ultimate management lab. The challenges have never been greater in this or any other industry under siege: publications are slashing budgets and staff in an effort to stay afloat and employees on my watch are scared and skeptical because the traditional media business is falling apart. If they lost their jobs, how else were they going to make a living? Working at Ace Hardware? (Though I do like Ace Hardware.)

So after mulling this over a bit, I jotted down what I know about managing people. It isnt as easy as you think. If any human resources type could be honest with you for a second, theyd tell you their company was filled with folks who have no clue how to be good bosses and make their people better at what they do. They scream, discourage, hire the wrong people, take all the credit for great work, and blame their employees for their own mistakes. Most of them dont even know how to fire someone the right way. Some of this misbehavior can be blamed on really warped personalities. But the biggest problem is that no one ever trained them how to be good bossesor any sort of bosses, for that matter.

How bad is it? In my business, which you will hear a whole lot about in this book, we find bosses by taking talented writers, waving a wand and saying, Hey, congratulations, youre now supervising a dozen people. And by the way, good luck. Let me tell you, good editors and good writers are not the same thing. You get lucky a lotafter all, these are smart folks who can figure anything out eventually. But this strategy often ends up in disaster. Think about it: a reporter is basically a loner who cares about his own work and no one elses. Is that what you want from a boss? Im sure its the same in other industries. The super salesperson doesnt necessarily make a great sales manager. The Boston Celtics basketball great Bill Russellmore on him laterwasnt a particularly a good coach, unless he was playing for himself. He couldnt, it seemed, understand why his players didnt think about the gameand executethe way he did. Superstars in any line of work are often that way.

So with all that in mind, Im going to give you advice in this book about being a boss and tell a lot of war stories along the way. This will be a jargon-free zone. In other words: if you like reading about things such as thought leadership, put this book back on the shelf immediately. I will make fun of people from time to time and quote some folks you might not expect to hear from on the subject of management. I am not, however, going to say nasty things about people Ive worked with. Well, for the most part. Not only do I have little desire to ask them for comment, but, well, we all have flaws.

Which brings me to one of the central points of this book. If you get nothing else from my rants, just hold on to the idea that everyone who works for you has flaws. To be a good manager, youve got to work with these imperfect people and figure out a way to avoid their weaknesses. You have to take what they do well and let them do it. Forget about asking some guy who cant dunk to dunk a basketball. For some reason, were always asking the short guy to dunk. But maybe hes a good three-point shooter. Let him do that! And you know what else? You cant get rid of everybody, so you better figure out what your troops do well. (Former General Electric chief Jack Welch was, among other things, known for a scheme in which he would lop off the lower portion of his workforcethe Csevery year. Good luck with that. What if the C has a crucial single skill? What if you have a workforce so obsessed with this process that they get distracted from their actual jobs? Just asking.)