Part Three: Shoboy in the Morning, Positively Fun!
In Part Three of our conversation, Shoboy, AMP 923 New York, opens up on how his team resolves conflict, techniques to brainstorm new ideas, and the future of radio.
Randy
R: What challenges or conflicts have you had within your team?
S: We don’t have conflict very often. My team is willing to adapt, change, take direction, and challenge me, as well. We are humble in the sense that we all realize we don’t know it all, we want to grow, and we want to challenge each other.
R: You hit on an important point. When you have an open policy that allows all the players to respectfully challenge one another, you’ll generate more killer content.
S: Yes, my style of leadership is servant leadership. I’m there to serve my team. I want them to have ownership of the show, regardless of whose name is on the banner. We’re all empowered as equals to bring ideas. So we created this filter where we say, “Do you like it, or do you love it”? There are no bad ideas. We just go with ideas that we absolutely love.
We have friendly conflict on the air to create entertaining drama. We clown with each other and make fun of each other. It can get awkward on air if one of us crosses the line. But we all know that absolutely nothing is personal. And if somebody does get hurt feelings, we speak about it off air, and it’s done. Nobody holds onto anything, and we move on.
R: You’re a very creative guy. When do your best ideas come, or how do you get your ideas?
S: My best ideas come, fortunately and unfortunately right before I’m about to close my eyes and go to sleep. I get ideas in the shower and in brainstorming with the team. Mondays are brainstorming days. We do kind of like a big picture, a big layout, and then we have shorter brainstorming meetings on a daily basis to flesh ideas out.
Amazing stories come from going out to dinner with friends, bars, rooftops, weddings, etc. One of my best recent stories was at a friend’s second wedding, His best man goes up to give his speech and says, “Listen, I was really nervous to give this speech, but then I remembered it’s my second time giving a best man’s speech at Bobby’s wedding. So he brought up my friend’s ex-wife, not once, but seven times!
DJ Majestic just went to a wedding in Cancun and he group texted us six highlights from his trip that were epic, and some were converted into topics. Two people ended up going to the hospital, two people ended up MIA, and Majestic ended up with no underwear at one point. Talk about a tease! Your best ideas come when your’re open, living life, and always looking for new ideas.
R: If you look at what is going on today with technology, how do you see FM radio fitting into the future of media?
S: FM radio is going to continue to be the hub of the content. However, we’re not just radio content. From that core there are all these tentacles, like an octopus. We pump the blood to Instagram, Facebook Live, Sound Cloud, video, and podcasts.
Photo Credit: Flickr.com/photos/agenciaglidea/
