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Erik: What’s been the most noticeable difference moving from a manager-level role to a director-level
role?
Caroline: I have a whole lot more people. [Laughs] No honestly. You know, actually,
in the manager level position that I was in at HBO I managed no one. So it was really,
my boss, who was VP, and me – two of us. I was very used to dealing with myself. I
had less, um, knowledge of figuring out how to handle a team, somebody once said this
to me and I thought this was very bright and insightful: “You always understand how to
manage up, because you had parents. And what did you do as a child? You tried to manage
your parents to get what you wanted. But unless you had a little brother or little sister,
you don’t inherently understand how to manage down.” So, to learn that process means you
have to – first of all, and I have this in caps lock – you have to care, because
a lot of managers just don’t care. They just want to get the job done, they want their
people to do what they want, and call it a day. Well it’s not that simple, because
each different person has a different skill set and has challenges that they’re working
on. And to understand that, and to figure out how to empower them is almost a full-time
job on top of a full-time job. It’s daunting. So, the thing that has changed for me is figuring
out how to lead a team. And that’s not an easy proposition.