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Literary agent Silé Edwards has discussed how a designated work mobile can help prevent burnout while Midas’ Hannah McMillan emphasised how a no-blame culture can encourage innovation at The Bookseller’s Marketing & Publicity Conference.
The FLIP panel on "Steering the Stakeholders – Maintaining Balance and Boundaries in the Face of Competing Needs" at London’s County Hall on Monday (1st July) was chaired by Yanmin Zhuchen-Mander, co-director of
The FLIP and also featured Niamh Anderson, senior publicity manager at Little, Brown Book Group, and Vicki Watson, acting marketing director at HarperCollins Publishers.
Edwards, agent at Andrew Nurnberg Associates, said: “One of my favourite things about having a boundary that is a clear, almost physical, boundary is having a separate device for my work and my life. The second I could afford a home laptop I got one and separating [this from] my work was a breath of fresh air.
“So I went one step further and asked for a separate work phone, so that if I don’t want to communicate with authors outside of work hours I can put it in a drawer. You can never really control your thoughts or those anxious spirals which go on at the evenings or weekend, but you can control how you respond to them.”
She added: “There’s a very unique pressure you feel responsible for an author or a book, feeling responsible for their career or success or failure… it can be really difficult, so I find keeping a folder of what I have achieved really helpful.”
Watson said: “When we’re thinking about stress and burnout, the four biggest things which lead to that are workload, time pressure, lack of clarity about what people’s roles are and lack of comms and feedback.
“You need to think about the feedback you’re giving your team, constructive feedback as well as positive and make sure that the positive is genuine. Are you giving them the right amount of feedback? It will give them clarity and direction, especially when you’re in an intense time of stress, helping to steer them out of that is important.
“[Mental health charity] MIND has a stat in which says one third of employees wouldn’t go to their boss if they’re stressed, so as a manager have you created an environment where they can come to you?”
Meanwhile McMillan, director at Midas PR, also emphasised the importance of company culture. “We’re really fortunate at Midas where there’s a no-blame culture, and I think that’s really important,” she said. “Mistakes are where you learn and you shouldn’t feel afraid of making mistakes. The learning process across that is so valuable so creating that sense of safety where that can happen is so important.”
On boundary setting, Anderson, senior publicity manager at Little, Brown Book Group, stressed the importance of outlining one’s role and responsibilities are “as early as possible”. She said that from the campaign perspective, sometimes “over-explaining to an author what that [publicist role] means” was necessary.
Zhuchen-Mander revealed how a framework can be helpful when checking on team morale in her role at senior marketing manager at John Murray Press. “I ask them [team members] to give me a number of one to five, meaning one is ‘I’m so bored’ and five being ‘I’m so burned out and I need a rest’,” she told delegates. “If it starts to get to four I say, is there something I can help with or push back to next week.”
Research released by The FLIP over 749 respondents earlier this year showed 97% had experienced burnout.