In a lot of ways, a writing room is like a normal day-to-day office. A supervisor oversees the content planning and production, while the production itself is often sourced from writers themselves. It’s a cohesive, symbiotic environment in which writers manifest concepts developed by leadership.
On an organizational flow-chart, the writers and the supervisors might be separated, but it’s important that communication remains a two-way street, even in a setup like this. It’s the writer’s job to deliver on ideas, but it’s also the supervisor’s job to ensure they receive helpful feedback through the process.
As an editorial leader, how can you equip your writers with the necessary feedback to grow and flourish? Here are a few tips to guide you in that regard.
5 Pieces of Advice for Managing a Team of Writers
1) Start with a Buffer
Some writers may need less feedback than others. But odds are, each writer will have a varying degree of positives and negatives to address in their work. It’s important that you address the negatives in a constructive manner – but always start with a buffer to lead your feedback.
As an editor or a supervisor of a writing team, you bear responsibility in leading and inspiring your writers, and equipping them with the tools to succeed long-term. Using buffers falls under the inspiration category. A buffer is simply a positive note you took from the article that you can use to encourage your writer and bolster their confidence in a healthy, organic way.
By using a buffer to kick off your review, you engage your writers with a positive recollection, and you make them more receptive to constructive criticism.
2) Be Constructive With Advice
When the time comes to dwell on more critical notes, make an effort to be positive even when approaching negative elements of the writer’s piece. Use imperfections as opportunities to teach and to build up your writers, not just as modules to belittle and project superiority.
Each writer is unique in what their strengths and weaknesses are, but those weaknesses are not set in stone. By explaining where an opportunity to improve lies through a constructive approach – as opposed to simply listing flaws – you turn a closed door into an open door, and you help your writer along the path to growth.
3) Provide Comprehensive Explanations
While you’re engaging in a constructive approach as a reviewer, it’s important to also provide comprehensive explanations for why a particular fix, and what it achieves for the writer.
For example, if the writer uses too many run-on sentences, don’t stop at identifying this flaw and presenting shorter sentences as an alternative. Dive into the “why”, and explain the function of shorter sentences, by encouraging the writer to put himself in the reader’s shoes.
In this example, shorter sentences help to keep the reader’s focus, and they can also improve the flow of the piece and drive home a point. Whatever your advice may be, make sure that your writers gain this functional knowledge through your feedback, so they can autonomously apply it next time.
4) Optimize a Writer’s Strengths
Now comes the part where you build off of individual review sessions. For individual writers, you can pick up on certain content strengths, and optimize their assignments to these strengths. Maybe some writers are better at fantasy pieces. Maybe others are better at quick informationals and injury updates. Maybe some writers have the heart and personality to tackle the emotion of a certain sport.
Maintain a dialogue with your writers – not just about where their specific strengths lie, but also what they’re most passionate about writing. That feedback loop will allow you to get the best out of your writers – not just at the micro level, but also with your overall content scope.
5) Monitor Progress Over Time
Once you conclude a review session with a writer, you can tuck that feedback away – but don’t forget about it. Meet with your writers periodically and track their progress in certain areas. Everyone in the sports media field is on a journey of their own. Your job, as a supervising presence, is to guide your writers on that journey.
Monitor their progress with areas of issue. If they grow, let them know how far they’ve come. If they’re still struggling, keep finding constructive and comprehensive ways to teach and uplift. By being thorough with your own upkeep, you can ensure the process never rests.
