It’s not unusual for new newsroom leaders to feel unprepared to direct a staff of journalists. But you might be more prepared than you think.
Yesterday we began recalling the skills we mastered as reporters and considering how they can serve us well as editors.
Here are two more concepts that good storytellers embrace. Could they help you in your new chair?
Concept 2: Details matter, but choose them carefully. As a reporter, you knew that a great detail trumped a well-intentioned adjective every time. If you found out how much a lobbyist spent per night to host the governor’s family in Bermuda, your “taking freebies” story became a lot more interesting.
As a leader, details also matter — especially to the staffers whose work revolves around them.
- How many minutes does it take for a paginated page to travel from the newsroom to the press?
- What’s the latest roadblock your local police department is using to withhold public information?
- How many minutes, on average, are you missing deadline -– and is there some individual or desk that is chronically late?
- What are the specific ways in which those new video cameras you handed to reporters fail to operate as advertised?
While someone else on your staff might be responsible for the answers to these questions, you as a leader have to decide when they require your attention. But how to decide? Think, for a minute, like a good reporter. Consider when a detail becomes “telling” -– that is, when it helps the audience understand what a story is all about.
For a leader, details become “telling” when they contribute to moving the staff toward that shared vision. Getting involved in the “telling” details -– like intervening in a standoff with police over public information -– can be a powerful reminder of your commitment to truth-telling. Getting involved in the purchase of longer-life batteries for the video cameras is probably micro-managing.
As a reporter, you appreciated the difference. Remember?
Concept 3: Questions matter most. When we were reporters, we understood that our best stories resulted from good questions. Then we became editors and assumed we were supposed to have all the answers.
Several years ago, Dave Zeeck, executive editor of The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., told me that when a staffer comes to him with a problem, he asks the staffer to propose a solution –- or at least offer a couple of possible solutions. He wants people in the newsroom to believe they have the ability to solve problems.
“Ultimately,” he said at the time, “I think it’s the job of leadership to say clearly what it wants — the mission — and for managers and staff to answer how we should get there.”
In other words, leaders write the beginning and end of the story, and the staff writes the middle. The experience is shared.
Test yourself today. Check how many times you respond to a peer, your boss or someone you supervise with a statement, and how many times you respond with a question. A statement may well be effective, but chances are, it will be better informed if you precede it with a question or two.
- In a news meeting, ask a question or two to invite discussion about a story in progress rather than pronouncing judgment immediately.
- Next time you evaluate someone’s performance, ask how he thinks he is doing, how he came up with that great lead, why she lit the scene as she did, what inspired her to combine that piece of music with a video. You might think you know the answer, but remember how many times as a reporter you were surprised.
Yes, leaders need to be decisive. Sometimes the most decisive thing a leader can do is ask a question. One like, “What do you think?”
Tomorrow: A trip to the produce aisle.
