NewsBeat

4 NewsBeat February 2016 4 tips for leading news media companies in times of change hen your organization needs large-scale change (and what disrupted media organization doesn't?), how do you get it done? Terabytes have been written about the strategies and tactics legacy media organizations need. I've written my share, too, at MediaReset.com. But I've seen precious little written about how to lead and manage effective change in carrying out these strategies. That's a strange oversight, because most great strategies are doomed to fail if they aren't combined with excellent approaches in dealing with people. As in the human body, change in an organization will attract internal antibodies intent on neutralizing, co-opting, or marginalizing the intended outcomes. The fact is, life-saving changes in a disrupted organization can only be accomplished through an effective mix of people skills and good strategies. Good strategies are almost always doomed to indifferent outcomes or outright failure if they aren't nurtured through effective leadership tactics. In my 40 years of managing, I've come to believe in a set of key approaches for mobilizing people around necessary change and getting things done. I'll share some of them here. At this point, I no longer remember which of these I discovered on my own and which were borrowed or adapted from others. But for me, these are related models that form a coherent approach to organizational leadership and change. I've used them over and over again for years. 1. Provide new information.I've blogged more fully on this principle before. But I need to repeat it here, because — for me — this is where all organizational change begins.And in this case, I know exactly where this wisdom originated — with Morrie Shechtman, a brilliant corporate change consultant I first met in the 1990s.Here's how Shechtman put it: "The only thing that changes people's behavior is new information. They'll go right on doing what they're doing right now, until they get new information." Changing behavior in you organization almost always needs to begin with new information. You have information that convinces you change is imperative. If others don't have the same information, or don't believe it, they'll resist or ignore your efforts to implement change.So the first step in mobilizing your organization, department, or work group is figuring out how to bring the rest of the team up to speed. In a disrupted industry, the necessary information is usually about existential threats or new-field opportunities.Figuring out how to bring the team on board with your new information is an art in itself. But most leaders can do it, once they realize it's the critical first step in engaging and energizing their people around a new objective. 2. Create meaning. I don't remember where I first heard this, but it was a simple statement: It's a manager's job to create meaning.This is closely connected to No. 1. New information, by itself, isn't enough. It requires interpretation, which makes meaning for the organization.A good leader either provides that interpretation or – better still – leads the team as a group in figuring out the interpretation.This can mean, for example, brainstorming together about what this new information means to us (our company, department, or work group). What are the threats to us? What are the opportunities for us? What should we do about it? Why? What are the good outcomes we want to achieve? How should we do it?This creates a very different environment from typical work settings. Too often, people are toiling along individually and routinely from day to day, just doing what they understand their jobs to be.The leader's job is to transform work from a series of tasks into a sense of collective movement toward a better, bigger outcome. Then the tasks become milestones with meaning, united with the overall goals of the team.The effective leader then takes frequent opportunities to reference the shared goals, to celebrate tasks accomplished along the way, and to invite any necessary rethinking to keep the group moving toward the desired end.This implies the third principle: 3. Involve people in deciding how to get it done. Many managers labor under the belief that it's their responsibility to figure out every problem and develop every strategy. This is a soul-killing burden – both for you and for the people you are trying to lead.It kills you, because nobody can be right all the time, and there's tremendous pressure in assuming you must be. It kills your people because it assumes they can't think as well as you can, leaving them to be mere robots carrying out your instructions.I learned many years ago that I could develop much better strategies and tactics by bringing a group of people together than I could by thinking on my own.Usually this conversation starts with No. 1: "Here's the new information I'm thinking about." Then By STEVE GRAY W Those leading teams in media organizations need to be forthcoming about information that motivates change, give context to their teams, involve employees in decision making, and creatively use available resources to solve problems.

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