Two Cents: The D*ckhead Cycle

When it comes to your boss, do you harbour fantasies about the perfect crime? Maybe a freak accidental death by pencil stabbing? Or a miraculous fall from a 17th storey window? We've all at some point wanted to punch our boss in the kidneys but is it more common than it needs to be?

As with most industries, ours is full of young and ambitious people, looking to climb the corporate ladder as quickly as possible. While different companies love to get creative and let's be honest, self indulgent, when it comes to naming each rung on this ladder, on the whole there is a fairly clear and linear career progression path that we follow. Starting at the bottom you work hard, listen to your manager, learn your trade and within a few not so short years you become the manager, and so on and so forth.

While this is the universally accepted way of working there remains one huge problem; an individuals progression is based on craft skills, not managing people.

And while these craft skills are important, as you move your way up the ladder your role becomes less focused on these skills and more centered on how you choose to manage those beneath you. So here’s the point.

Just because you can perform a job well does not mean you are entitled to manage or lead a team.

While this problem is not restricted to our industry alone, it becomes further exacerbated due to the already huge amounts of pressure we place on our entry level positions. In media, an entry level employee is charged with the responsibility of investing inordinate amounts of money and while this pressure should be significantly absorbed by those above, far too often the exact opposite thing happens, and it is placed directly on those who have the least amount of experience.

This leads to two very clear outcomes. One, newcomers quickly learn to hate their job and as a result we lose talented people to other industries adding to our already frighteningly high churn rate. And second, through no fault of their own, the people who tough it out and stay, end up doing exactly the same thing to the people below them once they have been promoted. To them that's the way it is, the "way I had it so why shouldn't they" and so the d*ckhead cycle is complete.

This generational perpetuation is where the wider issue lies and is a huge challenge agencies face in the future. Within a short period of three to four years an entire department can be filled with people who are exceptionally good at their trade, and exceptionally bad at managing people.

Truth is, we have a churn rate in this industry that doesn’t have to be there. Rather than focusing on training juniors to the eyeballs with craft skills for the next year, let’s put some emphasis on skills that will hold them in good stead for what they may face in next three.