Ken Rona on How Family Relationships Change With Age

In Chapter 1 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Are Your Family Relationships Changing as You Get Older?"  Rona has learned that the things that give him the greatest satisfaction are his relationships with friends and family.  Aside from being estranged from his father, Rona notes time spent with those dear in his life far outweighs benefits of material goods. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are your family relationships changing as you get older?

Ken Rona: Certainly more important. I mean I know there are people that get satisfaction from driving really fast cars. I’m still waiting on that car. We can talk about that actually from last year. I still haven’t pulled the trigger on it. You know, there are people who get satisfaction from particular experiences or particular things or—My satisfaction really comes from my friends and my family. I’ve said that people—I don’t really care where I live as long as my friends are there really, that’s what defines a home for me, where’s my friends and my family.

So our 25th reunion would’ve been a couple of years ago and that’s when everybody discovered Facebook, so it’s actually been really cool to get back in touch with some of the high school folks that I hadn’t spoken to in 25 years. So I have a kind of renewed interest in getting back in touch with folks and reconnecting, some of those folks I owe apologies to. And I’ve—My wife I think would tell you I do a really good apology, my mea culpa is about—I’m very refined but I’ve actually learned to be really refined about that because I’ve had so many—so much practice.

So I think what’s interesting is that as I get older, that stuff becomes more important. The, you know, with probably the lone exception of, you know, I have one—my father and I are estranged—I would say with the exception of that. You know, I think that these things as you get older kind of become more meaningful because you realize that so much of the materialism isn’t really meaningful, right? It’s the—I’d much rather spend an hour with my son or daughter than buy a new suit. You know, like it’s not even close, right? 

Ken Rona on What Marriage Teaches About Teamwork

In Chapter 2 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Has Marriage Taught You About Teamwork?"  In his marriage, Rona learns that conflict builds up more often than not when communication gaps exist, so he and his wife prioritize more consistent communication.  Rona also learns the importance of positive reinforcement and flattery.

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What has marriage taught you about teamwork?

Ken Rona: I was never a sports kid. I wore glasses. I’m—you know, I’m not—I have slow muscles. I have slow twitch. You know, no endurance. And, you know, it’s how I was made. So a lot of those experiences I think that people have growing up in terms of being parts of teams, nobody ever wanted me on a team, and for good reason, I mean it totally makes sense. The—you know, I’d say that my lessons—My lessons around teamwork with my wife I wouldn’t say are—I wouldn’t say they’re life changing, right? I think that we’re just—we try really hard to communicate, so there’s a lot of—in fact, we—when we have conflict, it is typically because I have been away for 2 weeks, right? Or she’s been—I was away for a week and she was away—we haven’t had a chance to really talk. And things are building up. So I’d say that without the steady stream of communication then things fall apart.

I’d also say that I’ve learned a lot—the benefit of positive reinforcement and flattery—and my team I think will tell you this too that I will both come in and say, hey, you didn’t such a great job here, but then I will come in and say, ah I caught you being good. So I think that’s something that I learned from my wife that she’s somebody who needs—when she’s done something well she needs you to notice it, right?

So I think that’s one of these things where—just, you know, just lubricates the—it lubricates the team. If one isn’t just like, you, you know—Like I’m not a yeller coach, right? You know, like, I’m not one of those coach—like Bobby Knight. I don’t think that’s—That’s not a model that—it certainly wouldn’t work in my marriage. But that’s a—Yeah, so I think it’s—I’d say the communication is the—is probably the single biggest thing.

Ken Rona on Why Mutual Respect Matters in a Marriage

In Chapter 3 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "Why is Mutual Respect Important in a Marriage?"  Rona references a book written by a marriage counselor about how he could predict a married couple's future based on only a few minutes with them.  Rona notes why it is so important to be supportive and not be dismissive as well as to stay committed to growing the relationship over time. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: Why is mutual respect important in a marriage?

Ken Rona: I think if you’re gonna be married a long time you have to be friends with the person. I think there are other things that, you know, when you’re 18, you get married and you think are important are not as important when you’re 45. I can’t imagine being married to somebody where there isn’t a really, pretty big nugget of respect for them. You know—Do you know this research around snap decisions? I forget the name of the book. There is this marriage counselor, right? And he can basically within 30 seconds of watching a couple interact, predict if they’re gonna get divorced or not, and he has like—I thought—I wanna say he had like 100% success rate. I don’t remember the book but it’s a story in the book. 

And what it really is, is his critical—the thing that he synthesized is—the thing he’s looking for is are they treating other respectfully? Right? It’s not like, you know, Hi, sweetie, I love you. It’s more like, you know, that you listen, that you—That you—I said, that you’re not dismissive. So I think it’s core to any marriage. 

I really find it—I can’t imagine how would you even propose to someone? I think the trick actually in marriage is that as people change that you have to kind of figure out what the new thing is, right? Like what—Like as people shift, how do you maintain that level of respect? Right? Or how does it grow?

Ken Rona on How to Be a More Engaged Parent

In Chapter 4 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Does It Mean For You to Be Engaged in Your Children's Education?"  Rona reflects back on his own childhood education experience growing up with Eastern European immigrant parents and taking on school more or less alone.  As a parent, Rona shares how he stays engaged as an advocate for his 7-year old daughter and his son in Pre-Kindergarten. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What does it mean for you to be engaged in your children’s education?

Ken Rona: I think folks would say I’m a very engaged parent. When I was growing up, my parents were busy earning a living. That they worked very hard to keep food on the table, and keep us, you know, in clothes, you know, we had a lower middle cla—what I would call lower middle class existence. And we had everything we needed but not much more. We had, you know, a few toys but it was, you know, a pretty modest life. And I kind of had to figure out school by myself. I more or less was left alone to kind of figure that stuff out. And I made some choices—I’m not exactly sure that they were wrong, I mean I certainly turned out well. 

But certainly early on, certainly like from junior high school, high school, and into college, parents weren’t very involved. Partly by my design, truthfully, they probably wanted to be more involved and I kind of kept things at arms bay and—because I thought that I could make—I was a person on the ground, right, I was a person that could make decisions better. And part of it is because my parents were eastern European immigrants, right? 

So part of my involvement with their education is to say I believe that you can have a better experience than mine in school. And I am one of the science dads, me and one of the other dads come in and do science experiments for the kids. Charlotte certainly understands what an experiment hypothesis is—at least on a basic level. I’ve tried very hard not to be, you know—what I’m committed to is not being a helicopter parent, right? The kids have to figure out their own way but in an appropriate pace, right? 

So I’m sure by—I’m sure by grade 12, our involvement will be much less after colleges are picked. But for now, I’m very committed to staying engaged and making sure that Charlotte has a good experience and that she has an advocate. So I would say actually that the primary way I’m involved with Charlotte’s school is that I’m an advocate for her, not that—and I’m trying to teach her to advocate for herself. Both my wife and I would say that I think that—and you know, she’s 7, so she’s not really in a position—although she does a—I think a pretty good job of it. 

So my involvement is, you know, is to be an appropriate advocate. I’m not planning on—I’m not planning on being one of these parents that calls up your kid’s first job and say why didn’t you promote him, right? That’s not—That’s—They’ve gotta run there.  But I think at age 7, at age 8, you know, for the foreseeable future, her mother and I and Doyle—you know, Doyle requires less advocacy at this moment, because he’s in preschool, but I would expect that we will continue advocacy, but interestingly you know, we—You also have to be really thoughtful about when you don’t advocate. 

So—just today, we got the class list for what class she’s—Charlotte’s gonna be in next year, and she’s—there are 3 classes in her school, each class has 21 kids, and there’s a shuffling from year 1—from 1st grade to 2nd grade, and Charlotte’s—like we’re not super thrilled with Charlotte’s shuffle. There are a very few friends from that class in her new class, right? Seems like—and I think that’s a shame, right? Because we just moved to Atlanta. And I—My wife and I haven’t discussed it but I’m pretty sure we’re on the same side of it like we’re not gonna advocate for changing a class, we’re not gonna—like Charlotte’s gotta kind of figure out how to be successful in an environment which is very friendly, right. Is it exactly what I would’ve wished for her? No. But like that is part of our existence, right, that you—that—this is not an incredible hardship, right? She certainly has friends in the class, she will make other friends. She knows all of those children. I would’ve liked that one or two of her close friends would’ve been in the class, that didn’t go that way. It’s gonna be fine, right? 

So I think that part of what you need to be able to do in supporting your children’s education is knowing when to not advocate, right, when to hold back and not be involved, because I think being involved is actually easy. You can just say yeah I gonna be involved. I think restraint is the harder part.

Ken Rona on Shifting Parenting Style When Kids Start Grade School

In Chapter 5 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Has Your Parenting Approach Changed as Your Children Have Entered Elementary School?"  When kids start going to school, Rona realizes as a parent the need to share his children with the world.  He finds teaching his kids sharing and empathy are key grammar school skills and finds setting expectations a powerful motivator for his 7-year old daughter. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How has your parenting approach changed as your children have entered elementary school?

Ken Rona: The insight that you have when your kids start going to school is that they’re not yours any more. They’re not solely yours. You share them. You know, the children need to be not just an effective--within the family, right? Not just be part of our family unit. But now they need to be kind of—they need to be in the world. 

So I think that there is—there is more kind of thinking about helping pointing out moments of where you can share, where you can empathize, right? And Charlotte actually does it quite naturally for the most part, except with her mother. But, you know, at school I think pretty naturally. So I think the other thing I think we’ve done is we’ve—we’re on Charlotte because she is actually in grammar school and Doyle is still in pre-K. 

For Charlotte, the expectations go up a bit. So—we expect her to do her homework. We expect her—she has opportunities to make money. Right? Both by doing schoolwork and by doing some other stuff. So she gets less for free. Right, so there’s a little more—there’s more expectation. She I think thinks it’s probably—if she was here, you’d say, Charlotte, how do you think about that? How do you feel about that? And she would say, it is not fair that I have to do something and Doyle doesn’t. And I think that’s exactly, when you talk about what’s the difference and Doyle is not in that stage. 

Doyle, I’m happy to—I’m happy to, you know, make good on the same things that—like if he’s willing to spend time doing math, which he does on the computer. I’m happy to pay him out at the same rate I pay Charlotte out but there are things that we will do for Doyle that we won’t do for Charlotte because like I said there needs to be expectations, like she’s—She’s 7 years old and I think it’s reasonable to ask her to do certain things. And in fact, l think we can probably ask her to do more than we are because she’s quite capable. I think she probably—she probably is coasting a little bit. But she gets asked to do enough stuff where she understands our expectations on her. And she treats my requests and her mother’s requests a bit differently. She’s probably more responsive to me initially, and now she’s become responsive to my wife—for my wife’s requests. 

Doyle is still a work in progress. Try to get him to brush—Try to get that boy to brush his teeth like you think you were—I mean—you know, I don’t really even have a parallel like you know you thought you were asking him to rip out his own toe nails, I mean it’s just—But, you know, we expect people—so for Charlotte, we expect her to take care of herself, we expect her to take care of her body, and she rises to that occasion. Doyle—Doyle still needs some help on it.

Manager Advice on Creating Teachable Moments to Train Your Team

In Chapter 6 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Are You Becoming a Better Teacher?"  Rona talks about how he is learning to better communicate wisdom in more memorable ways.  For Rona, this means looking for teachable moments to use vivid stories, feedback, and timing to teach his young managers core job skills. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising, sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you becoming a better teacher?

Ken Rona: The part of it is you’ve got to think about how you communicate the wisdom that you have in a way that is easily remembered. And to tell stories, right? So what I wanna do is tell stories around why I’m doing something or what I was thinking about. What I’m trying to do is shift a little bit to say, here’s the punchy phrase that summarizes what I’m trying to teach you here. And also the things that I’m giving people feedback on, tends to be much more managerial. So the other day something happened where somebody said something in a meeting that probably, like one-on-one would’ve been perfectly appropriate, and instead, he said it in a large meeting and it wasn’t appropriate to do it in front of a more junior staff. And as he was saying it, the first thing as—I mean I knew where he was going, he said kind of what he meant in the first sentence and I said hold it, let’s talk about this afterwards. After the meeting, I asked him to come in to my office and I said, look, as someone at your level you can’t make those comments in front of junior staff. Like you have a responsibility now—Like, have you read the Steve Jobs book?

Erik Michielsen: Some of it.

Ken Rona: So there’s this part where he talks about the difference between responsibility between a janitor and a vice president. And the difference is that that janitor, if he can’t get in your office because he doesn’t have the key to dump your garbage, that’s reasonable. Not reasonable for a vice president to say that. Vice president’s got it. So I kind of gave him a very short version of that story I just said, look, you know, there’s—there comes times in your career where there’s a difference between responsibility and the things you can say, and it’s not gradual. It’s actually a step change. You get promoted to X, you’re in a role, your role is different, and there are totally different expectations. Now, one would like to think like it is a step change, you’re walking up the steps, so you need to kind of go through those steps in your career, and what I was saying to him was, look, you’re—you’ve just taken the next step, the stuff you said at the previous point, you can’t say that anymore. You got—your communication is different. 

So there’s kind of another piece around the teaching where I tried to make it very vivid for him. To say like I mean I told the story about the steps and—So another thing you can do even though as I say I like to tell stories, really what I’m trying to do I guess is make these teachable moments very vivid for them so they remember it. And I think, you know, for that particular incident, stopping him in the middle of the meeting, bringing him in to my office, telling him the Steve Jobs story, and then saying you know, this applies to you. I’m 100% sure he got the message. So I guess some of that is I guess another important part of the teaching is the reinforcement, with that particular case, I reinforced 4 times in like, you know, 15 minutes. But I think that’s how you create teachable moments.

Ken Rona on Making a Career Transition from Specialist to Generalist

In Chapter 7 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Do You Enjoy Most About What You Do?"  Rona talks about the rewarding elements of his progressive managerial responsibilities interfacing with C-level executives and his related career transition from more specialist-oriented job roles to more generalist-oriented ones. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What do you enjoy most about what you do?

Ken Rona: I notice a shift in my—in what I spend my time doing—in the last year. The team is functioning I think very effectively. Instead, my job has more evolved to—I have to communicate what the team does. Right? To people—to people outside the organization or even inside the division I’m in. To monitor what’s going on in the industry. To interface with our C-level officers.

So I think—I think that’s been a shift in the role and I found that very interesting. It’s no longer am I solely valued for my analytic skills or my product management, my analytic product management skills. Now my value is coming from how I communicate with our senior folk and other folks that are kind of in the industry.

And that’s been—That’s been very interesting. As I say it’s—it requires a bit of a shift in mentality. As I say, it’s like –It’s a seat change, or it’s a step change, in what I was doing. So I felt like this year in particular, my career has taken a—my job has shifted. That it’s—it still encompasses the old stuff but it has a much more of a component around communication.

Ken Rona: How to Delegate Responsibility and Empower Employees

In Chapter 8 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Has Been Most Challenging About Handing Off Responsibility to Others?"  Rona describes himself as an "aggressive delegator."  Learning from working at McKinsey management consulting, Rona carries an "assume benevolence" approach to giving trust to others and empowering employees. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What has been most challenging about handing off responsibility to others?

Ken Rona: I gotta say I am ruthless about it. I am ruthless. I do not find that challenging one bit. I assume that people are gonna do a good job of it. So I think there are people who manage folks who say, well, I don’t trust you so I’m going to—I’m gonna keep—I’m gonna keep this, right. Keep the task, I’m going to keep responsibility, I’m gonna manage it very closely. That’s not my style at all. I actually am aggressive. I describe it literally as I’m an aggressive delegator. And what I’ve found is that when you trust people, and that’s my MO, right, is that I trust people. My first reflex, right, in these situations is to trust that people are going to do the right thing. 

And that comes from McKinsey. It comes from—there was this notion of assumed benevolence. Assume that people are good. And that’s—don’t make up a twisted story of why they’re messing with you. Just assume like something happened or, you know, why didn’t they get back to me? Because their kid was sick. Right? Not because they’re trying to make you look bad. I found that to be true. So one of the things I do when I take over a team and I’d say that I’ve done this 3 or 4 times where I’ll take over a team and they maybe hadn’t been the most highest performing team, the first thing I do is just empower them. And in almost every case people don’t wanna disappoint. They appreciate the opportunity and, you know, it takes sometimes a little while for them to say, oh, you mean I don’t have to check with you? But I like that, I mean that—I like that I go “no, why would you? This is something you’re perfectly capable of making a decision on.” Part of my strategy for delegation is I only delegate things that people can fail on. So I try to be really careful about that. 

It’s something I learned from—Actually l learned this from Donald Trump, I learned this from watching The Apprentice. So the story on The Apprentice is when Donald Trump shows up, if you’re the project manager of the show, you know, of that day. You show up to his limo, you open the door, “Hello, Mr. Trump, welcome.” And you escort him to wherever he needs to be. That’s an important thing that needs to happen. You can’t delegate it, in that show. So what I’ve learned is that—that’s how I think about these things. There are some things that the CEO makes a request, you know, I’m paying a lot of attention. The chief research officer makes a request, I’m paying a lot of attention. Some parts of the company who are looking to make a big decision, really important decision for the company, I’m paying a lot of attention. What I want is for the staff to be in a place where if they fail, it’s safe. That I can kind of take the blame, or that I can remediate it. I can throw another person at it. I can take them away from—Like you know whatever I gotta do to help them fix it, that’s what I wanna be in a position to do. What I don’t want them to be in a position is that where something had to go to, you know, someone very senior or something very visible and it was a spectacular flame out and I wasn’t involved. If I’m involved, then it’s my responsibility. Oh, I’m sorry. If I’m involved, it’s my responsibility. I mean it’s my responsibility anyway, but like, I can get in front of it. 

So what I try to do is construct environments where it’s safe for them to fail and I actually have some people, I call them trusted hands, where there are some people who, you know, if I’m super busy, and I can’t do something that should be delegated, I will—or you know, that I’m a little uncomfortable about delegating, I will put—I will give it to one of these folks. And they will—I probably have 3 or 4 of them floating around, that can handle very complicated things that have very high emotional intelligence, very high, you know, IQ, and that I just trust that they’re gonna deal with things the right way and I of course make myself available, but I’m not worried about them—I try to like—other people, I’m willing to tolerate failure in a safe way because that helps them grow. 

Ken Rona on How Reflection Informs Manager Career Growth

In Chapter 9 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?"  Rona refers to fundamental attribution error, which is where you take credit for good things and blame bad things on the external world.  Understanding this bias helps Rona reflect and make sense of challenges and his choices to overcome them.  Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What role has reflection played in shaping your personal growth?

Ken Rona: You know, there’s that line about a self-reflected life is not worth living. I take some of that to heart. When I have a challenge, I try to think about what role I’ve played in creating it. Do you know what the fundamental attribution error is? 

Erik Michielsen: Tell me more about that.

Ken Rona: Sure. It’s a psychological phenomenon, right, that many people experience. And the notion is that when something good happens, it’s because I’m great.  Right? And when something bad happens, it’s because the world is against me. Right? Or you know, it’s your fault, basically. Right? So you blame good things on yourself—Or you take credit for good things, but for negative things, you attribute to the rest of the world. And that’s one where, you know, when I think about something, I really try to separate that out. I really try not to take too much credit for the good, nor try to put so much of the bad, some of the negative factors on the external world. I try to kind of have a much more balanced—I try to—because I know about this I’m biased. I try to think about how to have a really honest assessment about what my role in whatever the challenge was, was. And I found that helpful. 

And I actually—it’s actually my—almost my talking point for the year has been to tell people about this. Because I have been in a situation in business where it happened with a vendor, where they were blaming something on us that was—like their product failure. They’re like, well, you’re not using the product right. Look guys, it’s your product. Right? Like, you know, why would you not take ownership of your product, and like blaming your customer is not a good way to go, right? But—So I’d say that’s kind of the—how I think about reflection. I guess it’s an empirical question if I do it enough or not, it’s certainly it seems to be okay but I think that you have to—especially as you get more senior, as you get more senior, you really have to think carefully about what your role in things are. And to make sure that you’re having the appropriate amount of influence, how you’re doing that influencing, where you use more direct power, right? 

I used to be accused of being a bit -- my elbows were too sharp. My elbows are probably always gonna be too sharp for the level I’m at, but I think that my use of the elbows is much more surgical. Right? I’m not like whacking them around, I’m more like—I’m more just going… And it was funny, I have a staff member who works for me and he’s—I—Do you know this notion in a—like World of Warcraft in a multimassive, multiplaying—massively multiplayer role-playing game, you have roles, right? And one of the roles that people have is they’re called tanks, and a tank is basically like a character that is designed to take abuse, right? 

So that while everyone else is running around stealing the vorpal sword, you know, the enemy is beating on the tank. Right? He is that guy. People just beat on him and he just takes it and takes it and takes it. And he’s—has much more—much higher emotional intelligence than I have, right? His EQ is much higher. I think. Because he takes that stuff and he takes it with a lot of equanimity, right? He’s just like really cool about it. And somebody was taking advantage of him. And I said, dude, they’re taking advantage of you. He said, I know, what should I do? I said, you gotta throw the elbow, man. Like so there are times when like being the calm voice, right -- the tank, is not always the right thing, right? Sometimes you gotta go a little bit on the offensive. 

So I’ve tried to be more—I’ve tried to kind of take actually from him the “be cool,” right? And I’ve tried to be a little more tank-ish. But I’m much more surgical about my use of my elbows.

Ken Rona: How to Establish Trust When Building Relationships

In Chapter 10 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Do You Establish Trust When Building Relationships?"  Rona notes that trust is the currency of business, not money.  He learns to just give trust to his staff, noting if you give it, you get it.  He finds this something controllable. When there is no direct reporting relationship, either with people more senior or in different parts of the business, Rona tries to demonstrate trust to them. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you establish trust when building relationships? 

Ken Rona: Well, with my staff, I just give it. There’s that Paul McCartney, John Lennon line— ‘the love you get is equal to the love you give’ or something—I mean it’s that kind of notion. I think that if you get it—if you give it, you get it. So but there are—that’s with your staff and that’s kind of more controllable. I think for folks who are let’s say more senior than me or in different parts of the business where I don’t have—there’s no direct reporting relationship, I think that one of the things that I do is I exhibit to them that I trust them. And I try to demonstrate to people that I think about them in the circle of trust. 

I was just talking to someone about this today, someone I had lunch with, to say in our first interview, when she was interviewing me, we got to talking about a personal issue for her and I gave her some advice that you probably wouldn’t give somebody that you had just met. And I was—she said—she was talking to me about this today, this was 2 years later. I said well I did that to say like, you know, I would expect that we would have a relationship that is, you know, trusting. And that I was gonna kind of talk to you about this stuff and once again, I guess in some ways I did the same thing I do with my staff. I gave her my trust. And I brought her in to my circle. And that’s what I try to do. 

Now having said that, some people are unresponsive to it. Some people don’t respond when you say something personal. Or when you be kind of a real person. They may not respond. And that tells you something about them. I think that tells you kind of more how you have to treat them. It’s a more buttoned down relationship. But you know what I tell people about trust is—once again I try to come up with a pithy line, trust is the currency of business. That is how business works. It’s not money. 

The way things happen is that if I trust you to do something and you trust me—that we all kind of trust each other that we’re all gonna do what we said we’re going to do, right, we’re gonna meet our commitments. Wall Street certainly thinks about it that way. So the thing you’re making commitments about is money or projects or whatever, but I think that the –what limited success I’ve had I think is because people trust me to do the right thing, they trust my judgment and I’ve tried to demonstrate it. 

So I think also, you know, you get a lot of benefits by reps. One of the things that I try to do for the staff is make sure that they don’t—when I’m delegating, they’re not there in a situation where they can fail, right? Part of that trust is when somebody gives me something that I have the judgment to know when it cannot fail. That if my boss asks me to do something that you know, I have to make a call. Is this something that I should—that he is willing to tolerate failure on, or that he’s not gonna be super happy about. And he said that I get it right, I build up more trust. I build up social capital. I think it was social capital. And in fact we built up enough social capital with the stuff we’re working on where the company has entrusted us with more strategically important things to do. And I think that’s how you know when you’re a success. That if you kind of feel that people—that your circle of trust gets bigger. I guess I’ll say that.

Ken Rona on How Aspirations Change as Responsibilities Grow

In Chapter 11 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Are Your Aspirations Changing as Your Responsibilities Grow?"  Professionally, Rona points to how he has established trust with his colleagues and bosses to make decisions and solve problems.  This leads Rona to think about ways he could handle larger senior management responsibilities.  However, personally, Rona sees his aspiration as staying in Atlanta and making sure his wife and children are stabled and grounded. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are your aspirations changing as your responsibilities grow?

Ken Rona: One of the things that I think I’ve shown is that I can be trusted. I can be trusted with staff. I can be trusted with decisions. I can be trusted with problems. As I’ve kind of proven that trust, I start to say, “well, you know what? Maybe I could be the CEO or COO of a company. Maybe not something the size of Turner, but certainly in the analytic space, I’m probably—“ So I kind of see that vision and I think that’s not something that I saw 3, 4, 5 years ago. But I think that I—I think that I could be a pretty effective, you know, senior C level person at a company that does what I do. That’s not to say a media company. I wouldn’t -- I’m wholly unqualified for that. But you know—or to be like the head of global analytics for something. Like I think that’s—I think that’s where I’m headed and I didn’t see—I didn’t really see that vision 5 years ago certainly. But now I think professionally I do. 

I think the question is, is that gonna be good for my wife and the family? I think that those kinds of jobs might be—Like I would be very interested in it but I’m certainly not interested in it enough to put my family at risk, you know? Or you know, and the family the—or should I say, I’m not interested enough to put the family dynamic at risk. It was quite difficult to get everyone to Atlanta and to a happy place; hopefully we’re there. The thought of trading—to uprooting people for any job right now I can’t really get my head around. So actually part of the aspirations, you know, when you talk about aspirations, I took it as professional aspiration, but I can tell you I have a personal aspiration to stay in Atlanta. 

I really—I do not think—and that my aspirations have really changed. I mean I—before I thought about moving I’d be perfectly happy myself to be move every 5 years. I think with the family, and the relative, the relative success that I’m enjoying I don’t--really don’t wanna move. I really want everyone to be stable and for my, you know, for my wife to be grounded in Atlanta

Ken Rona: What It Means to Be a Leader Working in Management

In Chapter 12 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in What You Do?"  As a leader of a team, Rona sees his role as less about thought leadership and more about helping his team solve problems, develop their own staff, and identify where and where not to decide what projects to pursue. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What does it mean to be a leader in what you do?

Ken Rona: There are leaders in multiple elements of my job, right? There’s the leader of the teams. It’s my job to help them figure out what to work on. But my job isn’t really to be a thought leader in advanced statistics or operations research; it’s not my gig. My gig is more to help them solve prioritization problems, to solve conflict, to help them better develop their staff, to identify areas of the business where they might have impact—places that they can take ownership. I’ve also encouraged them on places where we’ve identified areas where we could take ownership; there are things where I have said we are not going to. 

So part of kind of leadership in the job, the product side of what we do is a good understanding of what to say no to. There’s this thing called multivariate testing that lets you, let’s say swap out different headlines and see which headlines are more attractive, that’s how you get these crazy headlines from Huffington Post, you know? See who’s vacationing at the Riviera. They didn’t write that, what they did was they wrote four different headlines and then saw which one led to most traffic, and that’s the one you’re seeing. So there was an opportunity to be more of an advocate at Turner for it and I said to the person who wanted to do this, like, you know, I don’t think that that is—I think we are fully engaged in the things we’re working on. And this is something that I agree would be good for Turner but what are we gonna give up? 

So I think part of what—part of what you have to do as a leader, you know, within my job is to say, what are we not going to do. So one of the things I really help the team do, I think is keep focus. 

And the other thing I do is I hold them accountable. So that’s another piece, right, where people have made commitments, and I try like any good manager, not leader but say—I try to say what day is something due. And if the thing isn’t due that day, “what’s up?” I ask, “What’s up?” And there’s always a reason, right, there’s always a reason. My direct reports don’t get to have excuses. They have to deliver. And what I tell them is if you don’t deliver, I mean the way I perceive that is, you know, either you are not—you know, you didn’t do a good job forecasting which I think you get like some passes on but at some point you should know that like some things always take longer than you think and you should be able to make that mental adjustment. But so, either you’ve done a bad job at forecasting, you need to get better at that, or you’re a liar. And that I think--but that’s my point about learning, I try to make it a little shocking so that they can—that they grab onto it. 

So I think part of that is you know the holding people accountable, and I say like you asked before about what happens in a big company, it’s a little harder to hold people strictly accountable in a big company, because you have to operate in a particular HR environment. But I think that’s an area where—and truthfully it’s an area where I would probably be more aggressive if I were in a smaller company. I’d have more freedom on it. I’d probably hold people even more accountable.

Ken Rona on What It Means to Be Productive at Work

In Chapter 13 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Do You Get Yourself into a Flow State of Productivity?"  Rona talks about what it means to be productive in his work and how it has changed as he has transitioned out of a developer and analyst role and into general management.  Part of this is understanding that "flow state" productivity is more relevant in individual contributor roles than in management roles. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you get yourself into a flow state of productivity?

Ken Rona: I don’t really need to be. My job is different. I think if you’re a developer then you need to be able to get into that flow. That’s an individual contributor kind of question, right? Or somebody who does individual contributor work, you know, analytics or programming or art, right? And then, you know, if you’re managing people, you kind of have to go back and forth. That’s not really what I do. 

My career has kind of taken a different turn in that I’m not an analyst anymore. I don’t do that. I can use our tools. So one of the things I’ve tried to do is make it so that I understand how our analytic tools work and I can get into data if I need to, if I’m curious about something. Or I want to role model something, which I’ve done. 

But in terms of like producing deliverables, my deliverables are not so much pieces of paper anymore, my deliverables are discussions, and giving advice, and taking advice, and doing internal PR or internal marketing or—so that kind of—that kind of state is less relevant, it’s less relevant for me now that I have to be a good—I actually believe this, I really believe—I’m very ample about this. I believe that you should have focus. You shouldn’t work on too many things at once. And I don’t but I work on many things over the course of a day, but I’m pretty kind of unified—pretty focused on the thing I’m doing at that moment. But as I say the things that I do at that moment aren’t the kind of things that require the kind of extreme focus that I needed when I was a developer and analyst

Ken Rona on How to Be a More Effective Corporate Manager

In Chapter 14 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Are You Learning to Thrive in a Corporate Organizational Structure?"  Rona shares knowledge he has gained from management work experience in large corporate cultures.  He notes how being patient has been fundamental to improving managerial effectiveness and helping him achieve goals. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to thrive inside a corporate organizational structure?

Ken Rona: If I could give someone one piece of advice around that they were gonna go to a large company, a large kind of corporate, kind of very traditional--traditionally structured company, I would say the critical thing is patience. 

So I use this phrase “the market will clear.” Remember what I said about learning? I have like these little kind of small phrases that I like to use, that’s one of them. “The market will clear.” And by that I mean at some point the right thing will happen. And—because I think people when they’re in companies—when they are reliant on other people to do stuff. You know, you say, “Why are they not doing this? Like it is so obvious. They just need to do this thing and the world will be so much better.” 

One of two things happens, if you’re patient, either one, if—and you’re right. That person does it. So you know you were getting yourself nutty for no reason, that it was gonna happen. Or they don’t do it, you are right, they don’t do it, it becomes obvious that you are right, that person gets kind of either, you know, removed in some fashion or another—someone else comes in and they do it. So by that I mean the market, that’s what I mean when the market clears. If you wait the market, you know, the market will get to its equilibrium. The right thing will happen. 

Sometimes that waiting time can be very long. I’ve certainly seen—I have seen in the case of one of the companies I worked for, it was weird. It was wacky. And me and some of the people I worked with were just like we can’t believe this company is a success. And like they’ve gotta have a contraction, they’ve got—it’s just badly run. And I—you know, and I believed that, and I left. A year later I’m like—They’re still doing fine. I’m like, “How could that be? How could they still be doing well?” Another 6 months goes by, the stock falls 60%, the market cleared. So in my experience, if you are patient and you are trying to do the right thing—if you do the right thing and be patient, if you can. There are certainly times where you need urgency. But in general, my counsel is patience. Just be cool.

Ken Rona on Setting New Product Development Career Goals

In Chapter 15 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Goals Are You Setting as You Look to What Comes Next in Your Business Career?"  Rona notes he was hired by Turner to do a specific thing.  As his software product development project reaches its halfway point, Rona and his team begin evolving from a minimal viable product, or MVP, to the consumer marketing to foster adoption. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What goals are you setting as you look to what comes next in your business career?

Ken Rona: You know, I think you’d like to think that people have kind of--always know what the goal is. When I got hired at Turner I got hired to do a very specific thing. And we’re about halfway through that build I think. Maybe a little less, so my goal is to finish that build, so goals right now in terms of on a business sense are subcomponents of the build and making sure that thing is adopted so one of my big concerns—one of our big goals right now is, now that we’ve built a—there’s this phrase in the startup community called minimally viable product, it’s like how little do you need to –a software product, or even a hardware product, you need to make something interesting to a consumer. That the consumer would actually really want to pay for. Or use it, right? 

So we’re past that point, we’ve got to a point of the analytic tools we’ve created are more than minimally viable. In fact, they are some of the enterprise class tools that are available out there are—we are finding that we actually have a lot more functionality in our home built stack—home built analytic stack than these tools that have been being developed for 15 years. So now the question and it’s very clear, anyone who looks at it says, yes, of course. Now the challenge is in getting those tools adopted. So the challenge, and it’s always this way in technology. The challenge is not the building of it, although that can be challenging if you’re the IRS or the FBI who takes you know way, way longer they need to build something. But my staff is very competent, really good developers; they stood this thing up really fast. We have a really nice stack, a really nice set of tools. 

Now the challenge is getting these things adopted by the users. So our kind of primary goal now is, now that we’ve built something that is more than minimally viable, how do we get folks use it. I mean if we can’t get folks to use it, one of two things, right. Either we were wrong, we got it wrong, or we didn’t do a good enough job of advocacy. This is why you have evangelists. So I think the phase we’re shifting into a little bit is now more of an evangelism phase, so my goals kind of professionally are for people to adopt the tools, and that we get business impact from it. That’s what really drives success I think for certainly how I perceive it. If we’re not having business impact, what did we do it for? 

You know, personal goals, are I think are pretty much the same, you know, keeping the wife happy, keeping the kids healthy. You know, helping their development. And I think that’s—the only goal I would add is, it is a goal—I really hope next year, I really, really hope next year when we do this, I can say, “Erik, I finally bought that convertible.” That is really—That is a goal. My wife—I think my wife is blanching because when I show her the kind of car I want I think she can’t get her head around the fact that it is twice as expensive as any other vehicle she has ever owned. And truthfully, I’m having a bit of a hard time with it too but I’m just gonna go for it