Quint Studer Provides Insights to Management Style

Journalists are notorious for being bad bosses. Motivation in a newsroom is generally doled out in heaping mounds of humiliation and the occasional flying object. News directors tend to feel it is their solemn duty to personally make sure the skin of a young reporter isn't just thick, but impermeable. My first boss once sat behind the anchor desk and announced to the entire newsroom that I needed lessons on how to apply my makeup. Weeks later he threw a pen at me for rolling the TelePrompter too slowly. Our station was No. 1 in the market, but he eventually found himself in the unemployment line.

If only Quint Studer taught Newsroom Management 101. Studer is the author of Hardwiring Excellence and provides keen insight on how to manage greatness. I had the opportunity to attend his conference in Dallas last week. I learned more from him on how to manage employees in two days than in my entire career. By the end of the first day I was already calling back to the office, making arrangements for ideas that I had seen demonstrated.

Studer's background is in health care. He managed two hospitals and brought their rock-bottom employee satisfaction scores from nil into the 90s. The salient details of how he managed to do this are as follows:

• create standards of behavior,
• keep everyone accountable,
• reward and recognize often.

It all seems simple enough, which it is, but it seems nobody really teaches these tenants in school. Generally, those who are good at their jobs are promoted into management. The company relies on that person's good judgement, and usually provides little to no training on how to motivate. Nurses went to school to be nurses, accountants to be number crunchers - not motivators and leaders. There's a difference.

Studer comes from a health care background, but his thought process can be easily adapted to other disciplines. Pick up a copy, apply a couple of strategies and you'll reap the rewards of happier employees which include better efficiency, quality and most importantly contented clients.