The invisible manager

Ui mai koe ki ahau he aha te mea nui o te ao, Māku e kī atu: he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!

Ask me what is the greatest thing in the world, I will reply: It is people, it is people, it is people!

When I was running Pipi Productions we always used the same gaffer/grip as a sub-contractor. He was a South African named Ado (Adrian Greshoff) who was such an asset to the production that I’d do pretty well whatever it took to engage his services. He had the same attitude to us and always asked for good warning of our shoots so he could arrange his own schedule.

He was one of those self-contained guys – always so on top of his own responsibilities that he dovetailed with all the other departments and made their life easy. If there was room in his truck he’d let the office know and often saved extra hireage out of the transport budget. He’d lend tools, equipment or a hand to other departments without a second thought. Art department or construction working late would find a genny and lights set-up courtesy of Ado. I suppose that’s the keyword – courtesy – he was a completely courteous guy.

The Muslims have a term – Bidah – meaning a good tradition – from Muhammad – “whoever starts a good tradition in Islam will be rewarded.”.

Well Ado started a tradition in Pipi.

We always used to provide petty cash budgets to our subbys but kept control of big-ticket items with the Production Manager.

One day T (who was production-manager those days) pointed out to me that it was a waste of time to ask this of Ado who always dealt so honestly and fairly. It was just an inconvenience to him and no real benefit to us.

So we passed control of his budget over to him completely.

Once he had control of his own money, he got twice as much out of it. He was also gratified by the respect implied by the move. Soon he was turning up at the office on Monday mornings (production meeting time) to let the DOP and Director know that he could get his hands on a Weston or a jib-arm or whatever technical arcana they might find useful – not because he had extra money but because he had control and the confidence of the production.

We learned the lesson fast. We called a Heads of Department meeting, briefed them all on the state of their budgets and handed over full control. The change in the efficiency of the production (in mid-shoot) was amazing. Every single HOD went from being a slapdash budgeter to a strict accountant. The office girl we’d hired to help reconcile accounts had to have other work found for her. Production meetings took half the time because everybody knew what they could afford without having to ask.

It was a great lesson to me that you don’t actually motivate people – you create the conditions where they motivate themselves.

At the wrap party when everyone was giving me credit for running such a cool production instead of going through the complicated process that really caused it, I just sucked up the praise.

Truth is it was Ado – he started a tradition.

© Ray Lillis 2012