Leading Change in Your News Organization

Michele McLellanTransforming Ethnic Media News Organizations for the Digital Now Knight Digital Media Center / Atlanta, GA / June 7, 2009

Today’s agenda

Why people resist change Why it matters to you Ideas for promoting change

The culture of the newspaper One of the most defensive ever measured Highly resistant to change Skeptical of new ideas Detail-oriented, misses the big picture

Sources: “News, Improved: How America’s Newsrooms Are Learning to Change,” CQ Press, 2007; Impact Study, Readership Institute, 2001.

Why It Matters: Culture & Product Old culture …

Perfects the landline

New culture …Creates the iPhone

Voice of the old culture

“I don’t have time on top of everything else you’ve got me doing.”

“That’s not what you hired me to do.” “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Do you hear these voices in your newsroom?

Quiz: Why do people resist change?A. ConfusionB. IgnoranceC. Comfort with status quoD. FearE. Stubbornness

D. Fear.

Change is scary. Very scary.

The leader’s job: Reduce fear

Answer this question: Why? Be clear and specific Set reasonable priorities Allow room for learning (and failure) Lead by example Repeat. Adjust. Repeat.

Be clear and specific

“I made it clear to my newsroom that no one loves newspapers more than I do but that we had to change the way we operated to survive… I constantly hammered home, on a daily basis at first, the need to write a quick Web story version and to ensure it reached the Web.”

- J. Todd Foster, Managing EditorBristol (Tenn.) Herald Courier

Set reasonable priorities. Set priorities Limit priorities. Highlight the few Distinguish important from urgent

Allow room for learning (and mistakes)

Photo: Phil andDelisa Wegner

Training

“Training was a big key. We used in-house training. That was a big hit and a morale booster, because it showed the staff we were so confident in their abilities that we asked them to train others.”

-- Ken Tuck, Managing Editor,The Dothan (Ala.) Eagle

Identify and encourage “early adopters”

Lead by example

“When the staff saw the top editors running out the door to shoot video, they knew it was important. Seeing top editors learn how to edit video showed them how important multimedia was to this newsroom.”

-- Ken Tuck, Managing Editor,The Dothan (Ala.) Eagle

Today’s exercise: Taking it home What do you want to change? How will your staff respond? How will you help them change? What will you change about yourself?

Questions?

Thank you!