A Leadership Imperative
Celebrating progress is an
imperative for stations transforming reporters and photographers into multimedia journalists. It requires not only hard work but also the ability to learn new skills while “doing your daytime job.”
Larry Roberts, Regional Vice President and General Manager of KCBI-TV/Boise, understands the need to recognize progress. He does it at the monthly meetings for all employees.
What impressed me the most was Larry’s dedication to learning about employee gripes through small group meetings, sharing the problems with the staff, then detailing how he’s resolving them.
In most cases, Larry reports he’s resolved the problems. He gets down to specifics. Call it GM Proof of Performance or strong leadership to rally the troops. The important point is that multimedia journalists and others who are asked to work harder and smarter need this type of recognition and support.
Larry explains his philosophy:
The current economic crisis is forcing all of us to do business in new ways. The result can be a cloud subtly hanging over our employees’ heads. While clouds are good for showing off our “Pinpoint Doppler Radar”, they’re never good when they create angst and a lack of security for our team. So now – more than ever – it’s imperative that we look for new ways to provide hope.
Hope costs us nothing. It springs to life when we’re acknowledged for doing a good job, or reminded of how critical we are to the success of the station. And when we celebrate the little victories that are easily ignored, but very real. Often the things we take for granted are the most important things. Like sight. Or hearing. Or a live shot that works.
New ENG truck? $150K. New camera? $10K. Reminding each other of the progress we’re making … priceless.
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Multimedia Journalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 13th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Wow my knowledge just increased ten-fold due to your incredible and pragmatic knowledge and I will certainly bring this into my friendly discussions in the future.