Managing Your Desk

By Vince Rinehart

Editorial Copy Desk Chief

The Washington Post

1. Follow the Golden Rule

• Treating others as you would like to be treated saves effort, time and money.

2. Act like a leader.

• You set the tone.

• Find solutions without whining.

• Believe in your leadership, and others will, too.

3. Have clear expectations.

• Put your vision for the desk in writing.

• Educate bosses and your team about it.

• Be consistent and predictable.

4. Find allies.

• Cultivate relationships with other managers on your level and above you. You’ll find good teachers.

• You’ll need allies outside the newsroom.

5. Learn some history.

• How does your paper hire? Fire? Reprimand? Reward? Follow those examples.

6. Make yourself known.

• Take part in newsroom life.

• Talk often with reporters and other editors.

• Attend meetings and know what’s going on around you.

7. Represent.

• Be your team’s ambassador, advocate and spokesman.

• Solve problems for supervisors while treating colleagues fairly.

8. Take the heat.

• Be the filter for criticism from outside the desk.

• When there are mistakes, keep defensiveness in check.

9. Listen.

• Find out about your colleagues’ interests and experiences.

• Keep confidences. Don’t gossip.

10. Communicate.

• Have regular staff meetings for feedback and resolving problems.

• Praise publicly, criticize privately.

11. Be honest.

• Speak truth without rancor.

• Don’t ignore problems or sugarcoat bad news.

12. Be a reporter.

• Find out what might be hindering a troubled colleague. Is it at work? At home? Ask how to help.

13. Stay cool.

• If yelling begins, the discussion ends.

• Calm silence is the best response to extreme emotions.

14. Provide an “out.”• When there’s trouble, focus on actions,

not people.• Ask them for solutions, make clear you

believe they can address the problem.• Emphasize their importance to the

team.• Set a date to follow up later.

15. Be patient.

• In all conflicts, honesty over time, with reinforcement, breaks down denial.

16. You’re the boss, not the pope.• Admit fallibility and

concede mistakes The desk’s job is to challenge things; encourage them to challenge you, too.

17. Evaluate.

• Grow and keep editors by being thoughtful and using specific examples. Don’t surprise people with problems they haven’t had a chance to remedy.

18. Reward good work.

• Create a public way to show great catches, headlines and overall editing.

19. Remember the personal things.

• Birthdays, sympathy cards, new babies, weddings, etc.

• And every now and then, treat the desk to pizza.

20. Promote teamwork.

• In proofing and headline help, and coping with crises, everything works better when we take care of one another.