Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Why Are Theatre Managers Not Empowered?

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Posted by Brent Mahaney (Member # 1090) on 04-12-2003, 01:14 PM:

Something I have always found quite aggrivating about the theatre industry is the fact that most companies put very little faith in their management. It seems that there are so many guidelines put in place by operations manuals that managers are handcuffed when it comes to having to make quick decisions...or ANY decisions, for that matter. I understand that a company has to create standards for it's managers to go by, and I am also aware that there are as many bad managers as there are good ones, and the bad ones apparently need the fear of disciplinary action hanging over their heads at all times in order to keep them in line. But what about the great managers who really understand the industry and know their markets like the back of their hand? Why is there such an inability for the higher ups to realize that THOSE are the managers you WANT to empower? You don't want to alienate your best employees by decreasing their roles and relegating them to pawns. But you know what? This industry does that more than any other. I can name the worst culprits, but you all already know who they are.

I am curious...does anybody work for a company that actually respects their managers and appreciates the job they do (and actually TELLS them)? You always hear the bad stories, but are there any really good, positive things going on in your company?

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-12-2003, 01:51 PM:

The answer is very simple: If big companies wanted to trust their managers more, they would have to pay them a little more to get better ones than those they usually hire.
Since many do not see the complexity of this business, they do not want better managers. For them the managers are simply clerks, not people who make decisions.
It is the same everywhere. Here in Germany all the good cinema managers have left to go to work elsewhere because it is too frustrating to work for a big company.

Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 04-12-2003, 02:52 PM:

I'll echo what Michael said. It is a money issue and companies in general don't want to pay out anymore than they have to in wages. Currently at our independent theatre we are looking to hire a "promotions manager" to do the obvious. All 15 staff members were encouraged to submit an application. When those who did (and I think it was only two people) were told they'd get at maximum twenty-five cents more, that ended their drive to succeed.

On a personal note, I've never liked the word empowered anyway. My professors in college used to use it all the time. I'd look around the room and say to myself "somebody wants to empower these goofs [Confused]

". Yes, you are right when you say companies need safeguards against crappy managers, but at the same time I'd also be leary about companies that give good middle-managers too much. The power goes straight to their heads. Witnessed it more times than not. After all, we are only human.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-12-2003, 03:27 PM:

Of course, you can make much more money with better personnel who are allowed to make some small decisions. It is an entertainment business, and will always be the more successful the the individual locations can "tailor" their service to the local audience.
For instance, I worked for a chain which has bars in their locations. They serve a small selection of drinks and cocktails. Many times customers asked for variations or other drinks which were not on the list, but they couldn`t make them because they were only allowed to use exactly the items they had on the list. Then they started using surplus items to create special fantasy cocktails which were very successful. The bar sold about 4 times as many drinks as other cinema bars of that chain.
However, instead of giving the bar guy a bonus for raising profits, they became suspicious that he did something uncontrolled. And since many other bars with less motivated people did much less well, they decided to cancel the whole cocktail thing in all locations. This colleague of mine had asked many times for a small payrise, but they always told him it wasn`t possible. And then he had to witness how they simply cancelled a program that he had built up with a lot of hard work and which made several times of what he would have liked to see as a small payrise.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-12-2003, 08:49 PM:

It is just like the engineering gang who run and maintain the engines and engine rooms in the Washington State Ferries. One of the engineer's major complaints is fat over-paid assholes flying a desk in the front office won't allow the engineers to make a decision on what is and what is not best for the boat's equipment.

I guess that explains the $94,000,000 annual payroll they have. Tons of them are in the front office, and probably never been in an engine room to see what the real world is like.

By the opposite side of the token, It reminds me of an incident that happened when I was on the Oriskany. We were running as low-key as an a carrier can get during the Viet Nam Era. Someone in the Engineering staff decided it was time to "Blow the Tubes."

Well, they did just that. It blew our cover, so to speak.

With a conventional power plant in a ship, when the tubes are blown (cleaned), the stacks emit the biggest blackest cloud of smoke you can imagine that can be seen for miles away.

"Now, Will the Chief Engineer Dial 202"

There was not even a "Please" involved.....and if there is no "Please" involved in a message like that broadcasted throughout the ship, we knew someone is going to get a major ream job. Phone Number 202 was that of the ship's captain.

Posted by Brent Mahaney (Member # 1090) on 04-13-2003, 01:05 AM:

Actually, I don't like the term "empowered" either, but it gets my point across.

I don't understand this industry. I have either worked at a theatre or had a family member who worked at a theatre for over twenty years, and things have never made sense. For example, one day a major company sends a checker to your theatre to check your grosses and ticket sales on some crap movie, the next day they're sending a top grossing film to a crap theatre that is inferior to yours in every aspect because you're in a split market. So is it about profit or not? Well, yes AND no, apparently. They need to make sure your count is correct and that they're getting every penny on some flop, then they slap you in the face and send the blockbuster to a theatre that won't gross HALF of what you would have grossed with it. Logic goes right out the window. If they want to lose money, that's fine with me, but it makes no sense.

It's the same with management. Managers are pawns. PERIOD. If you are a good pawn, some day you will become a DM and have pawns of your own. The point was made earlier in the thread that you don't want to give middle management too much or they will get carried away with their power. True. They're called DISTRICT MANAGERS. The DM of the theatre I worked for about ten years ago didn't even have a high school degree. She was notorious for cruising into town, pulling her Cadillac up to the curb, getting out, and telling an usher to take her car and get it washed. In stark contrast, one of the best managers I ever had called our DM and VERY, VERY POLITELY made some suggestions that would improve the showtimes for our particular market. She jumped all over him. What a backwards world. And SHAME on ANY DM who treats good managers that way.

And then there's poor upper management in the sense that all they see is numbers on paper, and all they say is, "Get it done." And the whole time they're throwing obstacles in your way rather than removing them like good upper level people do.

But ultimately, the reason theatres don't want good managers is because they would have to pay them. Why do that when you can hire a 21-year-old to count money, get yelled at by customers who are total pricks, take the blame for every damn thing that goes wrong, and NEVER, EVER share the credit when something is right.

Finally, I never want to paint with a wide brush. I know there are great DM's and operations people in this industry, but you have to admit that they are the exception to the rule.

Oh well...I'm not an idealist. I know nothing will change. It's about maximizing profit, not how you treat your employees. But it just doesn't make any sense.

Paul...good points. You made me think about both sides.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-13-2003, 03:31 AM:

Another couple of reasons you don't see a lot of latitude given management at the theatre level are "oversight" and "liability".
If every manager in a chain op is allowed to individualize, then the company must have supervisors that can make sure the managers are operating in a manner consistent with the company's mission. This translates to extra payroll, and you know where that gets you.

The other problem is the potential for a manager to do something that might get the company in some kind of legal hot water... vaguely similar to Paul's story. As long as all managers operate "by the book" in true cookie-cutter McDonald's-like style, risk is lowered and so is the cost of mid-management.

On the other hand, it can also be said that the generic nature of some chain ops eliminates most opportunities to get involved in the local community. As Paul knows, there's a theatre in our area that once promoted the [bs]

out of itself. Once the place was sold to a chain, all local promotion and community involvement eventually ceased, and presentation quality lowered dramatically. Business dropped like a boulder, but that seems to have been accepted.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-13-2003, 10:06 AM:

I dont`t quite understand Paul`s story. Does it mean that one of the chief engineers made this mistake which gave away the ship`s position, then blamed it on one of his inferiors?

Most businesses are run like this. You have demotivated people and overpaid bad management everywhere. In the movie theater and in similar businesses, it just seems more inappropriate to run things the way they are ususally run, because it is an entertainment business where service and presentation quality should be very important.
Supermarkets are also run in this way, but there it seems less out of place, because as a customer you just want to grab your deep-frozen pizza. And managements see the movie theaters as nothing else: a supermarket where people come in, grab popcorn and a movie, then get out. For this kind of business you don`t need motivated competent people.

Of course, the nicer and better a cinema is run, the better the service and presentation is, the more people will come because it is a nice experience to come to this place. The more money they WOULD make.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-13-2003, 12:53 PM:

I have to disagree with most of the posts in this thread. Maybe I have just been lucky but I have not shared the same types of experiences. I am a 20 year old who gets paid very well to count money, get yelled at, take the blame, but also too recieve the credit, have the responsibility to make decisions and be treated with respect. At the company I work for there are basically 3 types of managers... The ones that are passionate about thier jobs and strive to do thier best, The ones that do enough just to get by, and then there are the ones that cant tie thier own shoes. Each type of manager is compensated and given the latitude to make decisions/respect accordingly. My Company is willing to invest in managers that they see as bieng in the first category and give them the latitue to make decisions. They actively encourage people to come up with new ideas. If you have an idea to increase percapita sales, or improve guest service then you are encouraged to try it.

[ 04-13-2003, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: Sean McKinnon ]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-13-2003, 02:10 PM:

Michael, nobody was blaming anyone. The Captain was not even interested in who actually screwed up. He lets the Chief Engineer figure that one out and take corrective steps to prevent something like that from happening again. This happened during training manuvers where we were playing "hide and seek" during radar silence.

Captain F. S. Haak's words to the CE were this:

"I just looked back and saw the stack belching black smoke. One minute from now, I will look back and there will be no bleching black smoke!!!"

The captain knew the Oriskany crew were top-notched performers, and he knew mistakes can and will happen. The Oriskany out- performed the bigger carriers like the Ranger, Coral Sea and the Midway more than once.

In the booth, I really don't care who made a mistake. I expected the person who made the mistake would have the balls to admit it. Then, action can be taken to re-train the person who made the mistake if re-training is necessary to prevent it from happening again. Where I get unglued is when a person tries to hide the mistake or lies about it. That's when I start "Chewing ass"....

This approach keeps everyone happy for the most part.

If a situation developed was due to gross negligence, a piss poor attitude or the acts of a disgruntled person, then we would take action and nail their ass to the wall.

Jack, you are absolutely correct about your assessment on that theatre. It was hard for me to see it go that way, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Sean, you are lucky so far. Let me assure you there will be times where the winds will not be fair, and the seas will not be calm.....

Posted by Brent Mahaney (Member # 1090) on 04-13-2003, 05:38 PM:

Jack...you hit the nail on the head. It is most definitely about oversight and liability. Having been in charge of operations for my family's golf course for years, I learned those lessons the hard way. But in addition to those points, I also learned that when you have employees who are dealing with a lot of money that belongs to YOU, trust is very difficult. I had to fire one of my best friends for stealing from me, and that has put me in a position where I trust absolutely nobody. Theatres are dealing with a huge amount of money and they can't trust most of their employees. So the rules that are put in place by theatre operations are partially to get eveybody on the same page, but the looming threat of disciplinary action at the end of every rule serves a second purpose which is to say, "We are in charge, not you." It attempts to intimidate and exert dominance. And you know, it makes good sense. There is nothing wrong with being strict. They are in charge and they are making sure you know it. But there is a fine line between operating with an authoritarian approach because it's useful to reach your goals and operating that way just because you can. What I'm saying is that when you shut out really good ideas from really good employees, everybody loses. Well, at least in theory, right?

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-13-2003, 07:06 PM:

That doesn`t really have much to do with the topic. It goes without saying that there have to be strict and tight rules to make sure no money is stolen. Everybody with an honest approach to his job will understand and honour that.

The problem is that managers are often not allowed to make decisions when it comes to the finer points of "fine tuning" every theater to the needs of its audience which nobody knows better than the people who work for that audience every day.

Apart from the examples I and others have given, there are many more: For instance, in one big chain where I worked, the managers had absolutley no say in which movie they could and which they should not have. They often wanted to book a specific movie because many customers had asked for it but they wouldn`t get it even though there were enough prints at disposal. Or many times we had scheduled the showtimes very carefully so that the theater could be operated with a small number of projectionists and ushers without neglecting the presentation/service quality. Then the central office just changed the showtimes randomly just to show that they had the last word. Or they told us which trailers to play - unfortunately the players we played were often not on our start list. But they ignored us when we pointed it out, so often we played trailers for movies which were never shown in our theater. But the central office expected our cashiers to send the customers asking for a specific movie to send them to one of our sister theaters across town. And I mean, literally across town - Berlin is 4,5 miliion people city. Of course, none of the customers ever drove to our other locations. They would just go to the competitor`s location 20 minutes away. But our company was headquartered in a small city in the province, and they could never figue out why sending the customers to another location didn`t work in Berlin when it worked in their small city...

Posted by Brent Mahaney (Member # 1090) on 04-14-2003, 12:03 AM:

Michael...my mind wanders...I don't do a really good job of staying on topic. I was just making the point that I somewhat understand the reluctance of operations to trust managers to do anything. Everybody who reads this post probably knows of at least one manager in your company who has been fired for theft. I think that when theatre owners and upper management get consistently burned, they have a harder time trusting their managers. Don't you think? I believe that distrust is a major part of what causes the gap in communication between managers and their home office. So I guess I'm answering my own question as to why managers aren't given more responsibility. I don't want to be too hard on operations because they have their own pressures and responsibilities to deal with.

Michael, I know what you mean about fine tuning. For example, some companies don't allow managers to draw up the showtimes for their own markets. And some companies will not let you do any promotion or simple, common sense advertising without first consulting your home office. And like you said, the list goes on and on. If it's really about profit, why aren't local managers who know their city allowed to have any input?

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-14-2003, 12:42 AM:

Brent:

Two reasons come to mind:

Corporate dudes fly a desk and have no idea or could care less about what the real world is like. I mentioned that in an earlier post.

The other reason is they probably don't want to be hassled with it. It seems they do not want to or have the desire to become involved with the entertainment and social needs of the community.

Generally speaking, it is much more fun to work with the independent owners than it is with corporate conglomerate organizations such as Engulf and Devour, Inc.

I think you get the point.

Jack said:

quote:
Paul knows, there's a theatre in our area that once promoted the out of itself. Once the place was sold to a chain, all local promotion and community involvement eventually ceased, and presentation quality lowered dramatically. Business dropped like a boulder, but that seems to have been accepted.

Indeed. To add insult to injury, the chain that bought the theatre didn't care. [Frown]

What a hell of a way to run a frickin' railroad.

[ 04-14-2003, 02:51 AM: Message edited by: Paul G. Thompson ]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-14-2003, 07:21 PM:

A quick note on showtime scheduling: My understanding of how some of the chains operate is to budget a certain number of man-hours to a theatre. The manager generally has enough latitude to schedule the staff within that budget. So... if a picture is coming in that's expected to draw, then the manager can add staff... at the expense of staffing on other days. That sound about right?

On "empowerment" (ick); seems that the bigger a chain is & the farther from the "head office", the less "empower" and motivation you tend to see... generally speaking. If the chain doesn't seem to care about anything but getting maximum cash transferred from the customer to the evening deposit, chances are the staff won't (eventually) care even that much... it's pretty mind-numbing at that level.

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 04-14-2003, 07:48 PM:

I tend to disagree Jack, from my experience it seems to be the farther from the home office the more power they leave to the individual manager. When you are close to home, people tend to look over your shoulder a lot more and try to take control of every little thing you do. At least that's how its been in my experience.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-14-2003, 11:55 PM:

Good point, Rachel. Maybe it's a regional thing... overzealous DM's or the like.