A brief Backyard Post follow-up: The importance of letting go and learning to trust the workers bees
By William M. Hartnett on Mar 28, 2008 in backyard post, newspapers, work
Friend, former colleague and beard-owner Will Sullivan reminded me of a point I meant to touch on in my big honkin’ Backyard Post introductory post. In adding that post to his world-famous Journerdism jambalaya links, Will, who was involved in the project before decamping to the STL, noted that Backyard Post is an example of “what smart people can do at a newspaper when you give them some control and get the hell out of the way.” Right on! Right on, amen and yes, yes, yes!
As Howard Owens has pointed out on several occasions, most recently here, this is not a “period of transition” for the newspaper industry. There is no stability as we used to know it waiting for us on the other side of this economic downturn, no “iPod moment” that will save our old ways and no one outside our own newsrooms working on a miracle solution for our business woes. There is only us, a climate of constant change and the quality of our own ideas.
Backyard Post is not the result of a closed-door, executive committee-driven order handed down to the workers bees in the newsroom, some kind of ridiculous corporate-office, trend-chasing, top-down, reality-detached commandment. Rather, it was the result of a process as honestly organic as that by which our industry’s very best journalism has always emerged. Just as all of a reporter’s best stories inevitably surface from the knowledge and connections he or she develops while covering a beat, Backyard Post leaked out of my brain in a natural process that can be traced from here to here and finally to here.
To my editors’ great credit, they not only enabled and encouraged this process, they enthusiastically jumped on board without even knowing just how wild the ride would turn out to be. If you’re looking for a newsroom with a future, you better find one where you can say the same of the people in charge. A newsroom in which the bosses do not merely pay lip service to the notion that their employees must feel invested to effect true change, but one in which they trust their worker bees enough to cede some actual degree of ownership of that process.
I’ve flogged the following bit of official Toyota corporate philosophy before, and this probably won’t be the last time I haul it out. It seems appropriate to repeat it here:
We accept challenges with a creative spirit and the courage to realize our own dreams without losing drive or energy. We approach our work vigorously, with optimism and a sincere belief in the value of our contribution. … We strive to decide our own fate. We act with self-reliance, trusting in our own abilities.
Backyard Post is part of our attempt to decide our own fate, vigorously and with optimism. We are, indeed, acting with self-reliance, trusting in our own abilities. Our heads are not in the sand, our hearts are not meek, and our outlook is not timid. Again, if you cannot say the same of your newsroom and its leaders, it’s time for you to move on.
Matt Waite | Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
All true, but it’s also half of the equation. It does take management willing to take a chance. But it also takes someone willing to throw out all that is comfortable and leave behind a clear, long established career path and make a go at something that may or may not work. In an environment of constant change, these are the people who will thrive — risk takers. The people who say no, I’d rather keep doing everything the same way I’ve always done it will be run over like rodents in the roadway. So don’t diminish your own part is this — you had to be willing to take the gamble that your bosses let you take.
William M. Hartnett | Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
You’re right about that, and the same obviously goes for you, too. And I will say that, both when I was still writing stories and even at the very earliest stages of Backyard Post, I would occasionally not be completely honest about what I was working on for fear of being shut down before I really got going. I’ve been known to actually hide, physically and virtually, for weeks on end if I felt something about which I was passionate was vulnerable to a “no.” I wouldn’t necessarily advise that sort of behavior as a wise career path, but I don’t see how we’re going to make it without a little dice-rolling.