"MOG": On Managing DeWitt Media, Inc.

On Management

MOG = Management Operations Group

The Management Operations Group at DeWitt Media met every Monday morning at 830AM.

All department and client account group heads attended along with our CFO and me, about 12 people out of our total staff of about 95.

Each MOG member presented a single page recap of the status of all work in progress in their area of responsibility---e.g., media planning, media buying, client service---followed by questions and feedback from all other attendees.

In this way, no project could go very far off base since every assignment was flagged weekly.

MOG meetings were a great way for me and my management team to be kept apprised of every job in the house.

They also alerted client account managers to possible problems with direction, due dates and other issues that could be corrected before they got too far off track.

By scheduling meetings first thing Mondays (our normal hours were 9-5) we made certain that our senior managers

• Started the week with a bit of momentum;
• Ended each week reviewing past progress and planning for the week ahead; and
• Were engaged with and could contribute their ideas and input to every thing that was being done in the company.

There was also a social aspect to MOG as everyone came to feel responsible for and proud of the work of everyone else.

The Wikipedia definition of collegiality is I think a concise way to summarize why and how this all worked so well for us:

“Colleagues are those explicitly united in a common purpose and respecting each other's abilities to work toward that purpose.”