Don’t Let Obstacles Become Excuses Obstacles are common in every reporter’s and editor’s work. The best editors lead their reporters in developing an attitude that obstacles are part of the challenge and variety of their work, not a reason for failing to do the work. You overcome obstacles with combination of factors: Resourcefulness, teamwork, communication, flexibility, persistence and confidence. The solution comes from the resourcefulness, but the teamwork, communication, flexibility, persistence and confidence are just as important. In addition to being able to devise a solution, you must commit to finding a solution, believe that you can, adapt to the changing situation and communicate your solution to the team that will carry it out. When big news breaks, journalists push aside obstacles in their pursuit of the story and, with few exceptions, we get the story. Contrast that with how we often react to change and innovation: We look at the obstacles and say this new task can’t be done. Yes, it can, if we attack it with the same degree of resourcefulness, persistence and confidence that we use on that big story. The example the editor sets is crucial to a staff’s approach to obstacles. If you show and expect resourcefulness, persistence and confidence, the staff will respond in kind or look to you for help when they are lacking. What is an obstacle? Obstacles are significant problems that arise in pursuit of a realistic goal that serves your staff or your readers. Overcoming obstacles does not mean denying reality. Persistence and confidence will not make the impossible possible. This can-do approach to problem-solving does not override responsible assessment of the feasibility of projects. It does not overcome genuine limitations or override legitimate authority. If you want to open a bureau in a nearby county and the editor or publisher says the budget won’t allow it, that’s not an obstacle. It’s a limitation and it’s not in your authority to waive it. If, however, the editor or publisher wants more coverage of that county using your current staff, the size of your staff is an obstacle. You can overcome it and improve coverage of that county. You also can use your resourcefulness to come up with a plan that will generate enough revenue from the county to pay for a new bureau. The publisher still decides whether or not to spend the money, so your resourcefulness alone cannot remove this limitation. Don’t let this problem-solving determination interfere with responsible decision-making. If you are deciding between two options, you need to assess them realistically. You may prefer a path that is far less practical. Perhaps you have valid reasons to take that approach and to apply this mix of resourcefulness-teamwork-persistence-confidence to the obstacles your path presents. That’s fine. But if the more practical approach is better for the organization, don’t use your confidence and resourcefulness as a justification for selfishness or stubbornness. Obstacles to innovation Innovation efforts face multiple obstacles, especially in the newspaper business. The demands of daily production have created a culture of expectations, processes and routines upon which our success, as organizations and individuals, is based. The way we’ve always done it is more than a comfort zone. It’s the process that allows us to make deadline and produce our paper each day. It’s our proven formula for success. By its very nature, innovation shakes that culture, changes that process and challenges that formula. It demands risk in a risk-averse business. Major obstacles to innovation may include your own gut and the outlook of your bosses, your peers, your management team and your staff. Embrace the challenge. Publishers and top editors must not be afraid to shake up the management team to find the right leaders to shape an innovation culture in your newsroom. As a new editor, this presents an opportunity and a challenge. You need to embrace the challenge of innovation, even if it means you cannot follow the role models that led you to become an editor. Celebrate failure. You will not innovate in a newsroom that does not welcome, encourage and even demand risk. If failure is punished, your staff will never take the risks that successful innovation demands. Praise and reward the staff member who tries something new that flops. That doesn’t mean you continue the failed venture. Maybe you readjust and try a new direction. Maybe you pull the plug after you’ve given it a fair chance. Always you make sure you have learned the important lessons that failure teaches. Be sure that your applause for the risk and the creativity outweighs any disappointment you express in the failure. Ask who’s ready to take the next risk, who has the next venture to try. Celebrate success. On the surface, this one is easier, because you feel more like celebrating success than failure. But it’s important to do this right. Make sure your celebration rewards the risk and the creativity, not just the results. Make sure you’re spreading credit, not taking credit. Ask how you can build on this success. Ask what made this venture successful. Identify the ways that resourcefulness, teamwork, flexibility, communication, confidence and persistence (and other factors) produced this success. Ask how you can apply these techniques to other ventures. Your celebration of success should also be a way of teaching the path to success. Develop skills. A huge obstacle to innovation is the lack of skills. People who have been successful in print journalism need to develop new skills and gain confidence in those skills to succeed in the multiple-platform newsroom. Identify the skills that innovation demands from you and your staff. Develop a plan to learn and teach those skills. Reward and recognize the leaders and staff members who lead the way in learning new skills. Set the example. As an editor, you set an important example by learning new skills yourself. And you create a huge obstacle if you set the opposite example, expecting your staff to master multi-media or interactive skills while you attempt to direct their work without learning new skills yourself. Respect differences. No change is embraced at the same pace by everyone. If your whole staff enthusiastically embraces an idea, you should consider whether it’s risky enough or innovative enough. Accept the discomfort that innovation causes for your staff. Good performers by your established standards remain valuable even if they don’t embrace change immediately. Give them time. You have to deal with the people who actively resist and try to sabotage innovation. But don’t strongarm, or lose the value, of those who are slow to hop aboard the change bandwagon. They still have value. And they provide important milestones on your road to success. As they “get it,” you know you are changing the culture. If you simply sweep out dissenters and bring in people who agree with you, you may have changed to a culture of conformity rather than a culture of innovation. Resourcefulness Zig when others zag. Your reporters will never find an exclusive story running with the pack. You will not innovate by copying others. Resourcefulness and innovation sometimes require zigging when everyone else is zagging. And they require editors willing to risk missing the big story or the successful practice others find while zagging. They require editors willing to look silly because you were the first to try this approach. Every trendsetter or trailblazer starts out going what looks like the wrong direction. Brainstorm solutions. Consider a wide range of solutions to the obstacles you face. Consider them with an open mind. Give special consideration to the ideas that sound the most outlandish. The most successful innovative solutions might sound ridiculous when you first hear them. Don’t dismiss the solution that sounds impractical. Ask questions about how you would make that work. Adjust your course. Your first plan will be flawed. Don’t follow it stubbornly. Resourcefulness requires more than an imaginative plan. It requires creative problem-solving when your plan isn’t working. API’s consultants on the Newspaper Next project, Innosight, note that 90 percent of successful ventures start off following the wrong strategy. The key to success is not the insightful strategy you start with, but the insightful adjustments you make as you go along. Find another way. Sometimes people in your community will be making news in distant places. Your reporters will need to tell those stories. The best way, of course, is to send a reporter and photographer along. But sometimes your budget won’t cover that. You still need to tell the stories. Tell your reporters to find out how these people will be communicating with their home or office. Get their cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Find out whether someone on the trip will have a digital camera. Will they have a webcam connection with people back home? Phone, e-mail or webcam isn’t as good as being there, but your reporter needs to get the best possible story under the circumstances you have to work in. In other ways, obstacles will shut off the best way to get a story. Find another way. Lead the way in developing an attitude in your newsroom of asking how you will get the story, not whether you can. Know the law. One of the most common obstacles newspapers face in getting stories is denial of access to records or meetings. Make sure you and your reporters know your state and local sunshine laws as well as the federal Freedom of Information Act. Demand access. Demand explanations when access is denied. Challenge when access is denied without valid reasons. Sometimes a reporter or editor talking to the attorney of the agency that denied access can turn the decision around. If an agency denies you access to important records or meetings that you know should be public, consider having your newspaper’s attorney intervene (sometimes a call from the attorney will do the trick, without the expense and delay of going to court). Your state’s freedom of information council also might help you. Sometimes a call from the editor, with an actual or implied threat of legal action will bring cooperation that the reporter could not get alone. Consider other sources. Sometimes you are denied a record because of valid reasons in the law or refusal to follow the law. Either way, that doesn’t have to mean you can’t get the record. Consider who might have copies of the record or access to it. For instance, you might not be able to get a copy of a juvenile court record, but a police officer might show you a copy if police are upset about handling of the case. Or if the youth’s family thinks he hasn’t been treated right, they might give you copies. Consider what other agencies might have records relating to this case. Maybe the record that is confidential in one context is public in another. Consider your approach. A reporter may assume a person in a sensitive situation will not grant an interview. So the approach may be to make a perfunctory phone call and accept the rejection. But sometimes the approach can make the difference. Maybe your reporter shows up in person and tells the person she would like to tell his story. Maybe your reporter finds a third party who has a good relationship with the source and makes a pitch through her. Strategize with reporters about the approach that will be most likely to persuade the person to talk. Get sources on the record. Encourage your reporters to work on the record as much as possible. When they have to grant confidentiality, insist that they do two things:
Use technology. You don’t have to understand all the technology at your disposal to use it in addressing obstacles. Ask your IT department and your web staff to help you find solutions. Presume that technology can help in solutions and find the colleagues who can help you make it work for you. Enlist readers’ help. Readers can help you overcome some of the obstacles you face. Try “crowd-sourcing” in breaking news, feature writing and even investigative reporting. Use your web site and your print edition to ask your readers what they know about the stories they are writing. They can become sources, giving you helpful documents that aren’t public records and leaking e-mails from the boss that tell you what’s really happening inside the agency or company your reporters are writing about. Teamwork Some resourceful reporters can overcome obstacles effectively by themselves in covering news stories. In most cases, though, teamwork is helpful, if not essential, in solving the problems that obstacles present, whether in news coverage, enterprise or innovation. Don’t collect “dues.” The newspaper business has long expected that people must “pay their dues” before they receive plum assignments. Innovation will demand some skills and knowledge that may be more prevalent in young staff members. Innovation may demand some team members who bring skills and experience from other businesses. Past experience is not meaningless. But base your decisions on assignments mostly on what people can do now for the challenges you face now. Diversity fuels innovation. The more your team is alike in background, culture, generation, interests, education and experience, the more limited your collective thinking and your problem-solving ability will be. Seek a diverse team with diverse leadership, so you bring a greater variety of experiences, outlooks and skills to the obstacles you face. Inspiration will lead further than intimidation. Some situations might justify or even demand the hard-nosed leader who rules by intimidation. However, intimidation is the enemy of innovation. If your staff fears you, your staff will fear failure and will not take risks. Intimidated workers always seek the safe path and innovation is never found on the safe path. You must learn to inspire your staff’s best performance. Set high goals, challenge your staff to find the solutions to reach those goals. Praise your staff for successes large and small. Reward risk. Communication Teamwork and resourcefulness demand effective communication. Share the challenges you face with your staff and your peers (and when appropriate with your readers). The more people who understand the challenges and understand your goals, the more help you have in pursuing them. Flexibility Innosight teaches that successful new ventures change their strategy an average of four times on their path to success. You need to be willing to learn as you go along. Test your assumptions and adjust your course as you learn. An obstacle that yields to your first attempt isn’t really much of an obstacle anyway. You can’t believe so much in your ideas and your approach that you let your own stubbornness turn into an additional obstacle. Persistence Interviews and innovation aren’t sex. In relations between men and women, no means no. In relations between reporters and potential sources, no sometimes means not yet. Sometimes in innovation efforts, no means not yet. Identify a better time to talk to the source, a better time to pitch your innovative idea. Sometimes the better time would be later that day or week. Sometimes you need to wait months or even years. Make sure your reporters try again when they get turned down for an interview. Have them identify a time that will be in the best interests of the source to talk. Refine your innovative idea, perfect your pitch and watch for the best time to try again. Keep pushing. Make sure reporters keep pushing for another person who can tell them what you need to know or another source for the documents they need. You want an outlook in your newsroom that says you will find the answers. Keep pushing also to find the innovative solutions and the ways to make them work. Most successful innovations require some adjustment and persistence after an initial failure. Confidence The most insurmountable obstacle is the one you think is insurmountable. Your staff will pick up on your confidence or lack of confidence. Even if you don’t have the answer, project your confidence that your staff and you will find the answer together. Language matters. Don’t ask your staff “if” this innovation will work. Ask “how” they will make it work, “when” they achieve the goal. Don’t ask, “Can you?” Ask, “How will you?” Discuss details of the solution, leaving no doubt that your team will find the solution. Outlook makes the difference. Whether you are pursuing a story or undertaking an innovation, your approach must be that obstacles will become the war stories of your success rather than the excuses for your failure. Helpful resources for innovation Newspaper Next: www.newspapernext.org Innosight: www.innosight.com The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution, both by Clayton Christensen |