The Kind of Manager/Producer I Want To Be

I've been thinking a lot lately about organization and planning, creativity and flexibility, deadlines and work hours. Most importantly I've been thinking about people: networking, managing, incentives, rewards, motives, etc. I do not aspire to be in a management position. I'm not writing this post because I want to be in charge of people. I do not. However, I recognize that in most every roll we get put in, we have to learn how to work with people and in most positions how to delegate and organize. There is hardly a position out there where these skills are not useful in someway or another.

The biggest thing I want to articulate here is my personal philosophy on managing people. In the different work environments I've worked in and with the different bosses I've had, I've seen many different philosophies on managing. I've seen people who will do just about anything to develop the highest quality product possible (and sometimes that has meant putting people second in priority to the product). I've seen people that are extremely customer/client oriented (to the point where they treat their employees as second best). It takes a good balance to manage all these things and sometimes we are so pressed for time that it's easy to neglect things that really matter. As I continue to produce video projects and/or get put in charge of people, I want to make sure to treat the people I work with more important than the product or service I'm delivering. It's for sure not a strategy or philosophy that everyone would agree with, but I believe that as you put the people that you work with (fellow teammates and clients alike) above anything else in the workplace, your product/service will naturally improve.

I am not perfect at it and I would like to work harder at treating people with respect, but if I ever run into a situation where someone is struggling to do their best work, I want to lovingly work with them to enhance their abilities, deepen their skills, or give them meaningful things to do. I never want to just let someone go simply because the work they performed was not to the standard I was anticipating. Many disagree. Many people feel that you should stop using someone or fire someone when they are not performing at optimal levels, but I feel like working with someone to help them reach that optimal level is better in the long run than treating many people unfairly. Firing people as soon as they mess up burns too many bridges along the way. I want to be honest with people, but in a loving way. I never want to let someone go unless it's unreasonable not to (for example, if someone was being dishonest, stealing from the company, or consistently not doing the work).