Always Bring Your A Game

Winning Doesn't Mean Security

Most of us were taught the way to succeed and stay employed is to do your job well, win consistently and always play within the rules. Lately, that premise seems to have collapsed. Many talented people in our business are in the performing aspect of their jobs and often are surprised to find out that they are even less secure than they might have thought. We probably all know some people who were fired for weak trends. We've even known some people who were terminated because their trends trickled and then the book finally came out and their ratings were up.

Always remember we're in a numbers business, and when the numbers are not on your side, your boss should be, otherwise you may not survive the season. And with formats and some urban consultants (especially the ones who can't find or hear talent or tunes) making personalities less and less important, the cume and quarter-hour jungle gets more and more dangerous. And with Arbitron's PPM ready to change the way the audience is measured, you've really got to bring your "A game." The PPM is going to give us a picture of what listeners have been exposed to in a given day. It's going to show that all quarter-hours are basically equal. Its cume figures are going to include lots of unintended listening. Smart future programmers will spread out their stop-sets so that programming can become more advertiser-friendly.

Unfortunately, most people work at their gigs in a state of almost anxious ignorance. At every stage of their careers, they may worry about how they are doing. Does the station consider them to be performing their duties well? What exactly does the owner and/or manager expect from them? Numbers, of course, but in many stations air-talent are not privileged enough to see the numbers -- at least not until it's too late and the dipping digits prove to be their undoing. Then the question becomes what is the likely future focus of their career. Well there's always trucker school.

On these and other crucial questions, there is often an implicit conspiracy of silence. Many bosses, whether they're owners, managers or PDs, are insecure themselves and invariably terribly uncomfortable about evaluating the people who work for them. One of the tragedies of our times is that regular talent-development sessions are a rarity for many urban programmers. The most commonly heard excuses vary from "I just don't have the time," to the MD who only learned Selector and never sat in the "air chair."

None of these are valid reasons for not communicating or doing talent development sessions. And we wonder why so many stations are calling in outside help? Just think about it. We know of several recent incidents when the only time some air-personalities heard from their superiors was to tell them that they were in trouble and often when they were told this, they were being terminated.

Reality Over Rhetoric

If you are fearful of losing your position or afraid of discovering what your boss really thinks of you, you may be afraid of the truth. Many people don't want to know how they are doing because, deep down, they are afraid they aren't doing very well. So they do not ask. They wait to be told. And they can wait their lives away.

You have to find out how you are doing before it's too late, while it can still make a difference, still save your job. You cannot hope to succeed in your career unless you pierce this conspiracy of silence. You must realize that you will not harm yourself by discovering how you are rated even before those numbers drop down from Arbitron.

Without this information, good or bad, you cannot possibly plan your career in an intelligent way. Too often executives make bad career decisions out of ignorance. They may be very highly regarded in their companies, but because no one has bothered to tell them, they worry themselves into unhappiness and accept less promising positions elsewhere. We've probably all heard of or know someone who just walked away from a good-paying gig with nothing to go to just because of their unhappiness with one insecure individual. I vividly remember the case of a jock who remained for years in the same position in a small market, simply because he thought he was secure. And when everybody else moved through the station on their way up, he declined all offers and remained loyal to a fault. He demonstrated his loyalty at the expense of making career moves. Then one day, a new boss came in and he was fired. Two weeks later he took a gun to his head.

Now even if your employer is not thinking about grooming you for better things, you should take a real look at your career path and at least have an option or two.

One simple indicator of how well you are doing at your job is whether or not you like it. One way to determine that is to consider whether you like getting up in the morning and going to work, if you're doing mornings. If you drag yourself out of bed, you probably like your job less than you think and you may very well be in trouble.

Another simple indicator: Do you like your boss? If you do, chances are he/she likes you. If he or she likes you, that's probably why you like them, whether you realize it or not. If you don't like your boss, it's another warning sign: The feeling is likely to be mutual.

Performance Evaluations

More and more urban stations are attempting to deal with the problem of employee evaluations by conducting format reviews at least twice a year. Every employee is summoned individually for a session with his or her boss, which may involve the preparation of a written evaluation form and the presentation of that form to the employee.

These usual hour-long sessions have the potential to be the most valuable sixty minutes of the year for employees, yet most of these meetings do not fulfill their promise and many are outright disasters. Executives don't like reviewing their people, so they tend to conduct the sessions hurriedly and superficially. Subordinates are uncomfortable as well, so after a few minutes of stiff conversations about performance, talk may turn to the NBA playoffs or American Idol.

How often have we heard about the air-personality or PD whose boss told them they were doing fine and that they had nothing to worry about, only to wind up being terminated, often within hours of their evaluation?

Beware Of Lateral Moves

Some of the best careers are crafted by those who use their early working years to gain some diversified on-the-job training to supplement their education and resumes. For instance, if you are a music director who wants to become a program director, look at the things a well-qualified program director would be required to know and then plan on seeking out an opportunity to gain that experience, either at your present station or certainly in your next career move. In selecting jobs and assignments, prestige, titles and even compensation may carry less weight than opportunities for learning, especially when you are first starting out. The diverse experience you may acquire is especially valuable today, when the urban radio business is more complex than ever before and competition for top positions is intense. A breadth of knowledge and experience gained by what may appear to be a rambling series of jobs can pay off big in later years, when experience meets opportunity. And hands on experience in areas other than what you are currently doing will make you much more valuable.

Speaking of trying to make yourself more valuable, sadly, a program director we know had no "A game." to bring. She had been promoted into the PD position because when the previous PD left, the sales-oriented GM didn't know where to turn for a replacement. He decided that there was no real difference between a PD and a MD. The GM thought he could solve the problem and save money in the process. So he promoted the MD. She had never been on the air and eventually found herself trapped with trying to evaluate the performance of her staff who knew that she had no real basis for judging their performance. She had come up through the ranks as a music director. The same individual knew little about ratings, promotions, contest budgets or marketing. When the company was sold and the new ownership took over, they reviewed her qualifications and offered her a choice. Either take a lesser job, at a considerable drop in salary, or look for employment elsewhere. She had missed her "basic training."

Basic Training

A lot of people, due to no fault of their own, missed some basic training. One of the today's biggest problems is that urban radio is not training new programmers, air-talent, music directors or promotions directors near fast enough. The result is that anyone who is trained and has even a small track record could suddenly find themselves in big demand.

Finally, those of us in decision-making positions must begin to train our assistants. That is true empowerment. We can't be afraid that our training will result in their replacing us, because if your job is that insecure, you're already in trouble. On the other hand, if you can train an assistant so that you can take some time off or free yourself to concentrate on any area that really needs your attention, you're that much further ahead. Then you can have them help you and bring their "A game." And if you both bring your "A games" together, that's when championships are won, trophies are tossed and paper is passed. You can both become "big ballers," shot callers" and certified "plaque on the wallers."

Word.