Scanning the Web on Saturday morning for coverage of Saddam Hussein’s execution, I took a slight detour. Had newsrooms amended their lists of Top Stories of 2006 to include the weekend’s big news?
Though I found relatively few sites with rankings of 2006 news stories, I discovered that Fox News had moved quickly, ranking Saturday’s execution second on its list of top world stories — just behind the Iraq War. Others, including sites that were running the Associated Press Top 10 list, made changes as the day progressed.
Which got me to thinking about New Year’s resolutions.
Why?
Because things change, don’t they? No matter how well we plan — especially in the news business — the unexpected intervenes, we respond and before we know it, abandoned are our carefully crafted resolutions to exercise, read more or learn to speak French.
Yet the tradition of seizing upon the new year for beginning afresh continues to hold great potential — it focuses our staffs and gives us a shared sense of direction and purpose. That’s why we invest so much energy into establishing big organizational goals like redesigned Web sites, new newscast formats, or the integration of our Web operations with our print or broadcast newsrooms.
But what about me? What about personal goals? What about my resolutions to become a better leader? Isn’t it true that our ability to achieve those big organizational goals rides on the quality of our leadership?
Of course it’s true, and that’s why the best leaders challenge themselves with personal resolutions — commitments to adopting behaviors that will make them more effective leaders.
That sounds good — but how can a leader stay committed to a yearly agenda of personal resolutions in the face of such unrelenting change and pressure?
Maybe we need to rethink our time frame.
Maybe, instead of setting resolutions for an entire year, let’s choose a resolution or two for this week. Who knows where we’ll all be by spring? Let’s set a goal or two that we can achieve by Friday — and maybe, just maybe, we’ll build on that achievement next week — and the week after that.
Okay, but what shall we resolve to do? I’m sure you have ideas; here are five of mine. All are basics. All of them often get lost in the frantic pace of today’s newsroom. And all of them send a clear message to the entire newsroom about what I, as a leader, value–– and what I want our newsroom to value, too.
Maybe, for one week at least, we can resolve to pursue one of these — or two…
1.) Get to know the staff better. You might be very familiar with their work, but how well do you know your staff? Resolve to find out. Before the week ends, buy one staffer coffee and, for 30 minutes, listen. Ask a reporter what she dreams of covering. Ask a producer to recall a time he couldn’t wait to get to work. Ask a copy editor what he does in his spare time. Ask a photographer what she wishes other journalists in the newsroom knew she could contribute to stories. Ask an online editor how he would reprioritize the newsroom’s work if he ran the world.
The important thing is to learn something new about your staff — people of whom you ask a lot, and on whom your newsroom’s success depends. Knowing them better, you will be better equipped to do your most important job: leading an organization in which they do their best work.
Remember, get to know just one staffer better by Friday — and next week, one more.
2.) Talk to your audience. Every day, your organization generates lists of readers, listeners and viewers. Some call in, some subscribe, some visit the building. This week, resolve to talk with one of them. Ask how she spends most of her time these days. Ask what he talks with his neighbors about. Ask what her children watch on TV, or read, or do on the Web. Ask what he thinks of his local government, his schools, his health care. Ask what she most wants you to know about her and her world.
Don’t ask him what he wants you to put in his newspaper or on his news broadcast. Instead, ask what he does. What she thinks. Then you decide how your newsroom can be more relevant to their world.
Remember, just talk to one person from your audience by Friday — and next week, one more.
3.) Develop new sources. As staffs get busier and the pressure grows to produce stories quickly, the temptation increases to turn — again and again — to the same group of experts. Same academicians, same political consultants, same economists, same local activists. How about declaring a partial moratorium this week on your staff’s current source list? Insist that by Friday, every reporter must develop at least one new source — one who significantly diversifies your coverage, either by race, ethnicity or political point of view, etc.
Remember, develop just one new source by Friday — and next week, one more.
4.) Learn something. Sure, we all learn something every day. But much of that learning occurs unexpectedly. How about identifying a skill that your staff can learn or refine in order to improve the quality of your journalism? Learn how to use blogging software, how to write a clearer lead, how to more effectively edit audio. In fact, the expertise might reside right in your newsroom — just call together a group for one hour and watch a demonstration, share pointers, brainstorm ways of using what you’ve learned. You might not master the skill this week, but you might add a tool to your journalism toolkit.
Remember, learn just one thing by Friday — and next week, one more.
5.) Brainstorm ideas. The challenge of energizing a newsroom in difficult times is a big one. Often, the pressure of producing more with less leads us to rely increasingly on a small group of people — often in management roles — to provide the ideas for stories, coverage strategies and other new initiatives. The problem is, we then depend on the rest of the newsroom to carry out those ideas. How much more effective could our efforts be, and how much more invested would our staffs be in those efforts, if we created a newsroom culture in which everyone’s ideas were welcomed, valued and — when appropriate — acted upon?
Brainstorming can help build that culture.
You can do it in 30 minutes. Invite people from different departments for a half-hour conversation about your health care coverage, your political coverage, your coverage of schools. Discuss better ways of presenting entertainment listings, recipes, sports results. Share ideas for more effective scheduling, for posting stories more quickly to the Web, and for disseminating more meaningful information to the staff about circulation, viewership and Web traffic.
Whatever you decide to brainstorm, observe just three rules: Respect everyone’s ideas, make sure the good ones move ahead and be willing to explain why the others did not. Ideas can become the currency with which everyone can buy into your newsroom’s success.
Remember, brainstorm just one issue by Friday — and next week, one more.
No matter what you resolve to do, here’s one last suggestion: Schedule it. Whether it’s a conversation, a learning session or a brainstorming meeting, putting it on your schedule makes it much more likely to withstand the forces of the unexpected.
We all need personal goals. And despite all that’s happening around us, we can keep our New Year’s resolutions — one week at a time.
