The following is a report I wrote after interviewing Matt Arroyo, the News Design Manager at Lee Enterprises’ Design Center.
Matt Arroyo is the News Design Manager at Lee Enterprises’ Design Center. He manages a total of 50-55 people, with team leaders under him that lead smaller groups of 10-15 each. He has been in this role for 3 years and was a team leader himself for about 6 years prior. His whole career has been in newspaper and design.
Arroyo believes that managers must be good listeners, be consistent, realize all people are different, know how to learn from others, and check in with themselves over time. Managers, particularly in a creative environment, must listen, learn, and adapt as best they can. Arroyo puts listening at the top of his priorities as a manager.
“A person who is a listener is someone who takes in information and then makes decisions based on that information,” Arroyo said. “My #1 goal was to listen to the people I was managing and hear them, hear what they had to say, hear what the problems were.”
Arroyo relies on listening and understanding to set a good foundation for his employees. He believes they deserve to ‘know what to expect, understand what the expectations are for the job, what you want and what the company needs.’ A strong foundation allows for cooperation and growth.
“People will excel when they have a solid foundation to work off of,” Arroyo said.
Arroyo also makes a point to realize people’s differences in the workplace. People have different backgrounds, experiences, and ideals that may change how they interpret or react to certain information or how said information is shared. In particular, Arroyo tries to determine how each employee may need information delivered in different ways.
“If you try to put everyone into this box [treat everyone the same], it’ll work for some people and other people are going to tune you out and they aren’t going to succeed,” Arroyo said. “You have to adapt yourself to the needs of each individual person and that can be hard.”
Arroyo works to share information in ways that are helpful to each and every employee. However, it can be a struggle, particularly with so many employees to manage. He stresses that clear, consistent communication is key to understanding each other’s differences.
“It is communication and meeting with each person, talking to people. Figuring out what’s going to work best for them,” Arroyo said. “The better you know them, the better you’ll understand what’s going to work.”
Arroyo did not study management, or even journalism, in college, so he has had to learn a lot of his skills on the job. Particularly, he has learned a lot from his past managers. Arroyo has learned from example what works and what doesn’t when it comes to managing people, especially creatives.
“I’m not going to be that person, I’m not going to just take that negative energy and keep passing it down,” Arroyo said. “You can approach it in ways where it’s not about yelling, it’s not about anger, but it’s about trying to improve or figure out ways to get better.”
Arroyo takes notes of things he wants to improve and things he wants to avoid. He often finds himself looking back at these notes to see if he is sticking with his plan. He wants to improve himself for his employees by avoiding repeating mistakes. Re-assessing his situation against these notes remind him to keep his eyes towards his goals and ideals.
“I go back and look at it [notes] and see if I’m still living up to that ideal that I had for myself,” Arroyo said.
Arroyo has found that it is important to be continually learning and improving himself for the sake of his employees and company. He believes that observation and listening are the foundation of personal improvement.
“Every job you have ends up molding who you’ll become,” Arroyo said.
Arroyo’s foundations of listening, realizing differences, learning, and self-evaluation set him up for success in his media management career. Everyone, creatives and otherwise, can benefit from this same set of skills to be better managers. Media personnel, in particular, should master these in order to better manage creatives in a production environment.