Symbolic Leadership

As I continue to contemplate the interview with the owner of the print media I realize that she best portrays leadership through the symbolic frame.

First she describes her job as a balance where she is responsible for making her staff know and feel great pride in their work and at the same time help them understand that just because they had a good year that they should not be content, that they can’t get too confident.

She shows passion for the work as she describes what they do at the company, which each and every other staff person we interviewed felt, by saying “journalism can be a source to defeat the modern thinking, that sense of alienation.” She sees the real power of the media and wants to be that paper that provides entertainment and at the same time meaningful information.

She is sensitive to the history and culture as she was asked to lead the paper when it was created. The vision of the paper was to be a progressive, liberal voice. She didn’t want it to be just preaching to the choir but more where the feeling of Santa Barbara comes from the paper. This tradition continues to drive the paper today.

And although the sense of what to expect from the paper continues, she also wants to not be content and welcomes change. A big change or something new happened with the paper when the community experienced a series of serious fires at the same time that the local daily paper was going through trouble times with their employees. The paper wanted to stay a weekly paper but they expanded their on-line presence with daily reporting of the fire. The community responded to this new addition positively and was thankful for on-going coverage of what was going on. She is currently looking to move the paper into a new direction by creating more space for news.

Finally, as for using dramatic symbols to get people excited, this the paper excels at! Their first addition as the paper was the local heroes edition and to this day they continue the tradition. They have also started regular yearly additions for weddings, back to school, non-profit work, and a few other yearly features. As a staff, they have bagel Wednesday; if the paper exceeds 100 pages they get lunch on Thursdays, a St. Patrick’s Day stroll (instead of a parade as you need a permit for that), and numerous other moral and fun events. For the community they established the best of section for the community to vote on, the Foodie awards for the restaurants, and the Indies for local theater.

The owner is one of those leaders that through her experience in the business over the years, she worked for the New York Times, Forbes, Rolling Stones, and the Village Voice, she paid attention to the type of environment that she liked working in best and what she felt created an environment to produce the best work from talented people. This is what she brought to the paper and it has worked for the paper for over 23 years!

Meeting with the owner!

Today Monica and I met with the owner of the print media we are observing. It was a fascinating interview! Interviewing the boss last worked for us as it solidified much of what we were expecting after interviewing and observing several of the staff members.

"Is this good for the COMPANY"is a quote for the movie office space and it hangs on a banner in large letters in the production office over Megan and Sarah's desks. The owner seemed to resemble this statement as she talked about supporting staff taking time off to take advantage of professional opportunities (the CFO, who I also call the suit, calls this a benefit), how she doesn't care about the hours of the staff, they can come and go as they please as long as the work is done and excellent, and she encourages the staff to bring in their children and dogs. She recognized as the paper was getting bigger that she should no longer be the center of control and what was best for the company was for her to have them take responsibility of their own sections.

I shared with her that the interviews of her staff, which she notes that she considers them staff versus employees (the CFO calls them employees) that they express loyalty and pride for the product. She wasn't surprised and indicated that this is what she expects.

She was certainly a woman of experience and wisdom. She worked for Forbes and the New York Times in her early career only to move to The Rolling Stones and then the Village Voice where she was a managing editor that reported directly to the owners. She came to Santa Barbara with a philosophy and work ethic that she developed by paying attention to how things worked and what she felt worked best, including how the work place ran. She noticed that a rigid work week was not conducive to a creative environment and her goal was to create a progressively liberal paper.

Now it's time to sift through all my notes, come up with common themes and work with Monica to make sense of it all visually!

Chevrolet

"A genuine leaders is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I found this quote on the inside of Ebony magazine. It was placed as a a tribute to the opening of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington D.C. this August by the company Chevrolet.

The quote caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First, it reminds me of the idea of leadership where you walk your talk and are congruent with your mission, values, and beliefs. It should not be my goal as a leader of OSL to seek consensus on how the organization should be lead and challenges met. Instead I should have an idea of how to address issues and mange the organization based on what I know, learn, and want the organization to be. This is accomplished through paying attention to the culture of the organization and the needs and desires of the constituents, the UCSB students and administration. I then need to influence support and build consensus to accomplish the said mission. Dr. Matin Luther King Jr. is an excellent example of a person who knew how to harness and build support for a mission.

Second, the quote makes me feel good about the company Chevrolet. Advertising works when meaning is made for the viewer and it positively influences the potential buyer to feel good about the product. Chevrolet is kicking butt with their advertising right now in my opinion with this advertisement and the one they debuted during the Superbowl (I really only watched the commercials and half-time show) where they uplift the town of Detroit where their cars are made. It made me believe in American made products and feel good about building back up a city our country abandoned as manufacturing moved to other counties, like China.

Our second visit

Our second visit to the print organization was just as great as the first. It started a bit wearily, just like the first time as Robby forgot to let Tanya, the face of the organization, but she quickly warmed up to the idea as we introduced ourselves and he (Robby) came out to say sorry and asked if she didn't mind giving us a tour.

She was spunky, spicy, cheeky, sassy, and for sure in charge. She walked us through out the building introducing us to people and showing us the important parts - and she accompanied the parts with good stories.

We spoke extensively with one of the production artists who managed the design of the advertisements. We were throughly fascinated by her wall covered with interesting pictures that represented good times at the paper. We met the woman she works closely with (Sarah) and Sarah's dog - what a cute dog!

The other person we spend a good amount of time interviewing with Matt, the managing editor. He has written for other print organizations and is well known for his work. He doesn't particularly like to manage, but he does really like the freedom and is incredibly proud of the paper. He is down to earth and I really appreciated the time he took - even though I knew he was really busy. He too graduated from UCSB and knew a bit about my organization.

The last person we interviewed was Todd, the CFO, the person we started with through email that wasn't as inviting as we hoped. I asked Tanya at the end of our extensive tour about him and said that we should probably at least say hello (and I noticed he was the one person's office we didn't see). She says to me "Okay, you asked for it!" I said that we didn't have to if she didn't think it was a good idea, but she said "it was too late now." So, we walked into his cave and he really was the odd man compared to the rest of the employees. Megan, the production designer wore incredible jewlrey that she designed and dressed in a hip comfortable style. Matt wore a simple shirt and jeans. Most people looked comfortable and some even stylish comfortable. Todd wore a suite - he stuck out like a sore thumb.

He said yes, that we could ask a few questions. I was lost for words - everyone else was so easy to talk with, but with him, I didn't know where to start. I noticed (his office was full of stuff and quite messy) a box on the floor that said 401's. So, I asked about the benefit of working there and why he stayed for so long (20ish years).  He rattled off the benefits (401K, medical, dental, vacation, sick leave, and even sabbaticals). He then said why he stayed so long was because of the opportunity to do his trade, accounting, at a well known organization instead of doing taxes for people his whole like. He seemed to lack the passion and respect for the paper that the other employees had about the place. I wasn't sure if he was really just like Eeyore and constantly gloomy by nature or not.

Our next step is to check in with Kate and get her feedback and suggestions and then we hope to interview the owner, Marianne. We may not be able to make that happen, but that would be okay as we got a lot of stuff from our two visits.

A Whole Other World!

As Monica and I entered into the world of print media I found myself outside of my comfortable daily life at the university. Although we begun the journey with a rough introduction, the experience turned out to be  fun, interesting, and dare I say educational (as we were to avoid any business that focuses on education, but education should be embedded in any business, right?).

Our first point of contact was with my husband vetting the idea of us visiting through the CFO and a follow-up email from Monica and I. The CFO's response was terse and vague. He set-up two interviews for us but cancelled due to sickness our first the night before we expected to visit. My husband was encouraging and said we should go anyway and see what happens. He does computer work for this organization and knows the staff.

We entered the building nervous and worried about our reception. The woman at the front was temporary and I was talking with her discovering this and wondering what we should do next my husband found staff he felt comfortable introducing us to and set-up interviews for us. The next thing we knew we were in our first interview with one of the sales people.

Mark was incredibly friendly and informative. We learned that most employees were long term, he was one of the newest as of one year. He shared how he was trained and the philosophy of the sales/business department. There are two sides of the house in this world of print media. The business side and the creative/writing side. In many of organizations like these there is actually tension between the two sides of the house. This organization seems not have this problem as they know their places and respect the work of each other. Mark feels good about working at this establishment and has no trouble selling add space because of the strong reputation of this paper.

Our next interview was with Nick. He is an icon of this paper - well known and extremely respected. He has been with this organization since its beginning. He shared with us the nature of his business, dropped the F bomb a few times and continued to sprinkle his speech with colorful language. He spoke of some of the politics around a competitor in town and the transformation of this paper as the politics were heating up of the other paper and there were some majors events happening in SB - the fires. This paper then went on-line and started to provided much desired coverage of important events in Santa Barbara daily instead of just weekly. It was a perfect storm of events for this paper - one paper going through tough political stuff, disasters happening in town, and a new medium that added value was launched.

Our last interview of the day was with a manger of multi-media sales. Robby was talkative and shared many stories about the organization. He opened the organization to us for full disclosure and became our priestes. He came to this organization via a professional organization where he met the owner and editors and they swayed him to relocate. His office is full of artifacts such as buttons, memorabilia and pieces that represent how they once put together the paper. He was animated about sharing with us how they used to wax everything - he had a special shirt he would wear the day they put the paper together, and showed us how it was done.

We left that first day in awe and full of information. We saw chaos in offices with paper layered on desks, walls pasted with pictures, buttons of all kinds, dogs in offices who came over for a pet as we walked by, casual dress, and happy faces with smiles.

The trip began for us with some fear and regret and it ended with my headed spinning from the experience of viewing a new work environment as well as learning a new language and craft.

We will be going back again on Friday to get a tour and meet some more people!

Getting ready to jump in!

I have been thinking about what it will look like to visit the organization we, Monica and I, will be observing. We have made the first step by having my husband contact one of the managers (he does computer work for this company - but is not a full fledge employee) to see if it would be okay to visit, observe, and interview. The manager said that would be fine but wanted more information. Monica and composed an email to the manager and sent it today. Our plan is to do an initial visit Tuesday morning. We plan to have questions all ready to go by the end of the class tomorrow.

As I read this weeks articles on Organizational Intervention I am thinking about the questions that we may want to ask the staff. As most of the articles listed in the syllabus were not accessible, I did a Google Search and am reading articles that pop up.

One such article is Human Resource Tips - How to Initiate Organizational Intervention by Benjamin Nash editor-in-chief of DailyHRTips.comfound that I found at EZine@rticles. His tips are:

1. Are You Ready to Rumble? In order to create change there needs to be a readiness and openness to change. There needs to be a general dissatisfaction within the organization for employees to have the desire and willingness to want change.

2. Do you have the tools needed? If change is desired but the leadership does not have the skill to lead the change, or understand the change, then it can be a disastrous move. They need to make sure that there is someone who is knowledgeable and willing to see the change to the end.

3. What is the Back-up Plan?
Be aware that plans may need amending or even scrapped. Have a back-up plan. This reminds me of the book we are reading "Whatever it Takes" where the authors recognize that a plan for change may have challenges and that it is important to be flexible and work through the challenges, even if it is about starting over. This is how you lead a learning organization.

4. Culture Matters.
He says to make sure that any change initiated accounts for cultural values of the organization and the people who work there. Without accounting for culture change will to happen. This reminds me of what we have discussed in this class - to pay attention to the culture of the organization that we observe!

I am getting both anxious and excited to begin this journey!

How to observe an organization - my current thoughts and reactions

I am thinking that after tonight's class as afterwards we should be going out and starting our observations of an organization. After reading the material and talking about what to look for in class I am more intimidated about the process than I would have if I had gone blindly. I think I am nervous about the process because now I know how much I don't know!

So, what have I learned so far? What are some of the things I should look for?

Lewin's leadership styles, field thoery, and whole picture
Think about how he says that one cannot understand an organization unless you try to change it - I so get this now as I have made changes in my organization!

Schon's learning systems - double loop and organizational leraning and refelction action to professional activiity.

Cooperrider's appreciative inquiry as presented by Bushe in his article about changing social sytems.

Schein's organizational culture.

And all that has been discussed in class:
Look for technology, values, behaviors, beliefs and value of what is important (unspoken norms)
Shared meaning
Symbols, rituals, ceremonies, stories, routines

AND how it ties in with our other class about leading a learning organization!

Boleman and Deal's four frames: structural, human resource, political, and symbolic. Also, how making the organization as simple as possible, but no simpler. Key characteristics: organizations are complex, surprising, deceptive, and ambiguous!

Peter Senge's definition of a learning organzation - these organziations are flexible, adaptive, and productive. They will excel during rapid change.

Oh boy, I guess it is time to jump in!