Politics and Bosses

I sometimes awaken in the wee hours of the morning with my brain racing over obscure thoughts. Yesterday morning I found myself thinking that a boss' management style usually mirrors the governmental style of his political party.

The Premise
The Democratic Party is accused of trying to micromanage the war in Iraq and wanting to establish government bureaucracies to control large aspects of everyday life. For example, they want universal healthcare and Medicare administered by a government office. They want Social Security to be wholly controlled by the government and do not want to allow any privitization, partial or otherwise, of individual contributions. And, Democrats want to control education through public schools and not allow vouchers for underperforming schoolkids to attend a private, "uncontrolled" school. They are also accused of being big government spenders. In short, Democrats tend to prefer a government solution or corporate office solution and control.

Republicans want to allow private industry to adminster much of everyday life, such as insurance companies provding healthcare and Medicare prescription drug coverage. They want partial privitization of Social Security and they want school vouchers for private schools. Also, most Republicans claim to want to control governement spending, but they sure didn't prove that during the last few years when they let earmark spending get totally out of control. Republicans tend to prefer a private industry solution, or, in the workplace scenario, giving managers a job or goal and allowing them to make their own decsions on how to reach the goal.

The results with my bosses
Over the years I've had a number of bosses, both active Democrats and active Republicans, and some whose political affiliation I didn't know. Some have been great bosses, a couple of bad bosses, and the others in between. On the whole, I've found that my Democratic bosses tended to be big spenders, especially in high profile, glamour areas, they've been more prone to micromanaging or at least having strong corporate decision making control on local issues, and they've wanted bonus compensation to be subjective and not tied to verifiable benchmarks. My Republican bosses tend to give you a job and let you do it, bonuses are based on verifiable performance, and expenses are based on budgets and not subject to knee-jerk whims.

I'll start my analysis with my bosses after I left the C-J. Warren Potash was an active Republican who promoted Jack Kemp instead of G.H.W. Bush for Vice-President for Ronald Reagan. He was definitely an economic conservative. Budgets were strictly adhered to, costs were very much controlled and minimized, but he would spend big dollars if he saw an even larger revenue return. For example, he chartered a boat in New York harbor for the unveiling of the repaired Statue of Liberty. He made the charter deal a year in advance and then built a sales promotion around the unveiling with a big party at the Hyatt to announce the program. Between the party, the boat, and all the travel arrangements to New York we spent several hundred thousand dollars, but we wrote new revenue business of several million dollars. If profits exceeded budget, bonuses were very generous. Warren was one of the best managers I ever worked for and I learned a lot from him. I learned that cost control is essential and that you can often make more money with a #2 ranking than a #1 audience ranking. Warren left Cap Cities with a couple of million or more. Warren confirms the premise of mangement style matching politcal governing style.

Warren was followed by John Hare. I don't know anything about John's political leanings so I'll leave him out. I will say he was one of my "bad" bosses.

Scott Ginsburg was an active behind the scenes Democrat, active in raising money for candidates and using his connections for his personal benefit. On the whole, Scott left day to day things alone but, every now and then he would want to totally control certain things. He was also prone to sudden, knee-jerk decisions. Usually, that meant disaster and a whole lot of wasted money. For example, when we paid millions for a new station in Los Angeles the research studies said the format hole was Urban. Scott wanted to do a rock format in a market already crowded with various rock formats. He orchestrated a $1.2 million advertising blitz over 3 months for the new rock format, the largest launch for a radio station up to that time. It failed miserably, producing a 1.0 share. Facing technical default on our loan covenants we quietly and quickly converted to an Urban format that immediately generated 4 times the audience, revenue, and profits. He repeated the mistake in Dallas when he decided to take Y95 out of the unprofitable CHR format. I won't get into the details of why it was unprofitable but it had much to do with his direct involvement. Research said to do a Young Country format but Scott wanted to do Oldies becasue he like the music better. We went Oldies, went broke within a year, and had to sell the station. Another company took the Young Country format to #1 and several years of strong audiences and strong profits. Scott wasn't done, though. Before we sold the station he decided to have a Beach Boys concert. He said it would only cost $25,000. It turned out that the $25,000 was just the deposit for half of the Beach Boys appearance fee. Scott added the Four Tops, the Temptations, and a Texas Stadium venue. He also hired a big time producer to stage the whole thing. Before it was over we lost $150,000 or more but Scott had a big party. Through astute dealings, good fortune, and the strong work by CFO Matt Devine, Scott stayed one step ahead of bankruptcy and eventually had a compnay that he sold to Clear Channel. Scott walked away with more than half a billion dollars in cash and stock. Budgets were a farce. Corporate prepared them with no input from the stations. Compensation and bonuses were arbitrary and based on how Scott felt about the person. He proves the premise - micromangement, uncontrolled spending, compensation based on feeling - that mangement style matches politcal governing style.

Next came Heritage Media with Jim Hoak as the Chairman, Jack Robinnette as the TV President, and Paul Fiddick as the Radio President. I'll discuss Jim when I get to Hoak Media. Jack was an outspoken Republican supporter and contributor. Upon the sale of Heritage he received several million dollars for his stock. As a boss he was essentially a carbon copy of of Warren Potash and, as such, proves the premise.

Paul Fiddick basically disproves the premise. Paul was a staunch Democrat who later served as Undersecretary of Agriculture in the Clinton Administration and for the early months of the Bush administration. While he carefully monitored and directed the market managers, he generally gave them a job and let them do it. The budgets were carefully crafted by Paul and the GMs and then followed. Expenses were controlled and bonus compensation was totally predicated on measurable performance - sales, ratings, and profits, especially profits. I know Paul left Heritage with several million after the sale of the company. Up to this time, Paul was the best boss I ever had. However, his management style was totally different that the above stated Democrat governing style.

John Borders and Don Tuner of Sunburst Media were my next and now current bosses. Both are Republicans but not overtly politically active. With a very small company, necessity requires a lot of involvement by the top management. Even so, they gave their managers the goals and the means to complete the goal and allowed them to manage their markets. There was no micromanaging. I developed budgets with the market GMs using profit targets provided by Don. Compensation was based on achieving measureable goals, costs were controlled, and there were no knee-jerk decisions. Integrity was a key, so much so that when they started up again I came back to work with them on a handshake. Both are millionaires. Their management style fits the premise of their political party.

I'll skip Radio One and Rodriguez Communications since I was never much involved with the Alfred Liggins or Mark Rodriguez and I was only with each company a very short time.

First Broadcasting brought me Ron Unkefer and Gary Lawrence as bosses. Both were Democrats, but like John and Don, not overtly politically active. I've never been in a company that was more micromanaged. We lost several deals because the person tasked with making the deals was given no leeway to negotiate terms. For example, we had a project to acquire a particular station and move it to a larger city. We could make a very good profit if we could acquire the target station for $1.0 million and even make the deal work at $1.5M. However, our person was only authorized to offer $500,000. The seller countered with $1M but our guy (girl) couldn't accept it even though we would have made several million because she didn't have the authority and said she'd call back. In the meantime the seller found out who we were and deduced that we must be doing a move-in. His price went to $2M, deal dead. This happened over and over. It was a small company and no one was safe from the micromanagement and criticism (mostly unfounded but done to put you in place). Bonuses that were tied to objective criteria were replaced with subjective bonuses. Definitely one of my bad bosses. Both are millionaires. Management style equal political style - premise proved.

My next stop was Hoak Media with Jim Hoak as Chairman. Jim is an active Republican fundraiser. Jim gives his managers a job and lets them do their work. He sits in on a weekly management conference call but seldom injects his opinions and never bypasses the President to go directly to the station with directives. Bonuses are paid on measurable performance criteria, costs controlled, and budgets developed primarily by the stations and are followed. Jim is a mulit-millionaire and proves the theory.

The last one on my list is Tom Castro of BMP Radio. Tom was the Texas Campaign Chairman for John Kerry. He is an outspoken Democrat supporter and very active in political circles. He is heavily involved in the operations of BMP. No decision is made without his approval. The markets and senior management spent 2-3 weeks developing annual budgets. During the process Tom had to sign off on the preliminary revenue numbers. After the budgets were completed, Tom went through them station by station with senior management for 3 or 4 weeks finally making several admittedly arbitrary decisions regarding additional revenue and expense changes before they were submitted to the board for approval. Operationally, the budgets were quickly dismissed if it was felt that circumstances had changed. Bonuses were subjective based on Tom's evaluation. The thought was more work may have gone into a bad profit year versus a good profit year due to circumstances beyond our control, the economy, 9/11, etc. Tom wanted to be able to reward people based on his evaluation of their effort. Station openings were accompanied by extravagant parties for prospective clients. Direct results in the form of direct revenue was difficult to guage from these parties but the community was definitely made aware that BMP was there and not a small mom and pop operation. It gave the station credibility. Tom is a millionaire. On the whole, Tom's management style reflects his political party's style.

Regardless of party affiliation, all of these guys have been successful business people and are now millionaires. So, from that aspect you can't claim that one way is better than the other. From my own personal point of view I prefer to work for a boss who gives me a job, the resources to the the job, and leaves me alone to do the job. That and the opportunity to make more money is why I am back with John and Don at Sunburst. Does that mean I am a Republican?