Birthday reflections: Pizza personalities, digital studios, and middle management challenges

Having a birthday in June is good, as it presents an opportunity to reflect both as a half-way point through the year and a start of a new age.  This is also my first birthday with a blog.  In the interest of full disclosure, I pause to reflect on the thoughts behind the face looking back at me in the mirror.

Pizza personalities

The most consuming, distracting and hopefully rewarding project on my plate at the moment is my research into consumer behaviour around conflicting motivations of convenience and environmental beliefs. To support my research, I launched www.mypizzapersonality.com in May after many months of planning and development.  The findings so far are very interesting, demonstrating the potential for organisations to engage social media communities to overcome barriers of addressing fringe consumer groups without alienating loyal markets.

Next steps are to find the best mechanism to release the results through speaking and writing contribution gigs, to get more participants, to release the results, to get more participants… you get the idea.

Work, work, work

We had around 9 staff when I started three years ago in the digital studio in which I am production manager.  The first two years were characterised by rapid growth from additional management capacity and sheer force of will.   While we continue to climb in staff counts to a present 27 bodies, this third year has been one of growth not so much in numbers but in maturity of process and approach.

In my studies in identity, I found that to do different, we must be different.  To be different, we must embrace change we cannot control and direct the change we can control.  This engagement is personal, exciting, and messy, acting on ourselves as individuals as much as it acts on the organisation.

As I went through my course in change management, I embraced the influence of chaos theory in commerce that necessitates unwavering processes and system.  The foreseeable future for the studio includes the continued investment into systems and processes to act as a foundation for the uncertainty of the market.  At the same time, we focus on documentation with an end goal of ISO 9000 to allow greater visibility and transferability of knowledge around the organisation.  All this while staying ahead of a rapidly developing technology market moving increasingly into the mobile space.

Is there a better way?

I have resolved in myself that middle management is hard.  Books, case studies, and magazine articles promote approaches and frameworks that convey a simplicity of business.  The reality of the situation is that there are pressures from every angle that pull production and project managers every which way but centre.

My question for the moment is: Is there a better way?  Is the only way out of the commercial grind of management to write books, become a CEO, or get on a speaking circuit telling others how to do it better?   Is this an escape or the introduction of new pressures? How can middle managers who bridge the gap between company direction and operational fulfilment find satisfaction?

There are three solutions for those looking for an answer:

1) Change your perspective;

2) influence your current situation; or

3) leave your position.

The first choice is often necessary to achieve the second, and the third choice is rarely a solution.  If you leave, understand you will take with you the one constant in your life: yourself.

The year ahead

Given my personality type, I acknowledge that I see new opportunities every day.  When I arrived at my digital studio, all I asked was that I could help develop people to their full potential.  They said that if I pumped out efficient and effective digital solutions, I could do whatever I wanted.  We have both been true to our word, so it has been a win-win.

I look to the year ahead with a certainty that it will not roll out entirely as planned, that I will not be the same person at the end, and that I will achieve only some of what I set out to achieve.  However, after thirty-eight years of this, I now know where I can contribute the most and coincidently where I am most alive.

I will keep you updated on the journey.