My First Job: Not Everyone's Born a Manager

I have had many first jobs, depending on how one defines them: first ever, first paid, first meaningful, etc. In each of them, however, I have learned from my own failings more than from anything else. As they say, experience is the name we give our mistakes.

In my first professional role, I was an editorial intern at the Detroit Free Press. That was more than a quarter-century ago, when the public still read newspapers. It was a wonderful opportunity.

I wrote thirty-two pieces that were published that summer. I was not yet twenty years old. When I interviewed for permanent jobs elsewhere, employers didn't believe me when I presented my portfolio of clips.

But from that beginning, I misunderstood perhaps the most important aspect of much work: it is a social activity, not a solitary one. It was easy to receive the wrong impression from that particular office. After a morning meeting to discuss current events and decide what was worth commenting on, the staff scattered to their desks. Although we shared drafts, each of us was essentially responsible for our own respective thoughts.

Thus in my first management role, I did so much wrong as a direct result of having had a career that was about ideas rather than people. As a consequence, my style of supervision consisted of telling a subordinate: "I would like you to carry out this assignment. I am your boss. I will evaluate you on the basis of your performance. My evaluation will determine your compensation."

Anyone with a modicum of ability as a leader, which I lacked, would have realized that such a line of reasoning was worse than ineffective. The truth of each assertion only reduces the usefulness of the whole spiel.

At some point, I concluded each person who reported to me would do well to have internal motivation. I then tried to reason with each of them so they could develop a personal rationale for carrying out the plan I had imposed. It hardly mattered that an observer might have deemed my strategy worthwhile. The vision amounted to nothing without effective execution.

Every few years, I have an epiphany. Everything I once believed turns out to be wrong.

I have had it backwards all along. People matter more than ideas. I have more than enough ideas, and some are not too bad. What I value is the team to help me, and they will do so only if they have the visceral commitment to our shared cause.

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