WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2006
Blurring the Borders Between Work and Family
By Scott Libin
I heard a couple of great pieces recently on
NPR's Morning Edition. Only one mentioned journalism. Neither was aimed at newsroom leaders. But both dealt directly with issues that ought to occupy the minds of editors and news managers of all media.
The first was an
interview John Ydstie did with
New York Times columnist
Lisa Belkin. Their topic was where and how working parents draw the line between work and the world outside, where family awaits.
Belkin shared stories that would make just about any parent both smile and cringe. She remembered trying to write
a column as she waited for her son to emerge from surgery to repair a broken bone. The key word, she said, was "trying." That was one place she found to draw the line: No writing on deadline while one's offspring is under the knife.
My Poynter pal
Jill Geisler tells of being rushed to the hospital herself in 1989, in premature labor with her second son. While doctors and nurses attempted to hold off delivery, Jill herself was on the phone with her newsroom. I've heard the editorial process compared to giving birth, but back then Jill took the metaphor a bit far.
"My doctor told my husband he would 'surgically remove the phone' from my hand if he had to," Jill reports, "and that I had to be made to understand that stress was a real factor that could affect whether I'd give birth prematurely. (Husband) Neil and friends and family were enlisted to reinforce that message. Even my GM (general manager) issued an edict that no one was to call me to 'talk shop' while I was hospitalized. It worked."
... We've outgrown the days when keeping a police scanner on your nightstand proved you were committed enough to make it in the news business.The challenge of choosing where work ends and the rest of life begins is nothing new, nor is it by any means resolved. In Ydstie's interview, Belkin mentioned some of the guidelines she and her husband came up with, things like no nights when both parents are working; no two or more consecutive nights out on business (with the obvious exception of travel); and a shared calendar both parents use to schedule work obligations. If it's not on the calendar, don't count on it, Belkin said.
She didn't say what line of work her husband is in, nor how often breaking news breaks the rules at her house. I'm sure other families would come up with their own systems, better suited to their circumstances, preferences and values. But Belkin's basic approach struck me as consistent with the skills of sound decision-making that apply to ethics, management and other challenges newsroom leaders face all the time:
- Front-end work -- the idea of not waiting until something big breaks, be it a news story or a child's arm, before considering and collaborating on how your family or newsroom would handle such a situation.
- Guidelines rather than policies -- how to approach decision-making, rather than what decision to make in every imaginable situation; how to decide, rather than what to decide. That distinction may seem subtle, but it's important.
- A range of alternatives, instead of an either/or, black-and-white dichotomy -- which means resisting simplistic, seemingly stark choices, and choosing instead to explore the not-so-obvious possibilities between polar extremes.
Why are these issues particularly important to newsroom leaders? Because of the burnout and turnover eating away at so many news organizations. Do you really want those you supervise to choose between their jobs and their families? Do you really want to make such a choice yourself? Journalism, more than many fields, forces such choices on people, unless somebody steps in with a third (or fourth or fifth) alternative.
It's certainly possible to be inappropriately "family-friendly." More and more managers tell us in Poynter seminars that their employees who are not married or do not have children resent what they perceive as special treatment for colleagues with kids. Journalists who are not parents tell stories about being asked to work unpopular shifts or on short notice because they "don't have families."
Of course, they do have families. They have spouses or siblings or significant others or mothers or fathers or all of the above -- and they have an understandably limited tolerance for being treated as if their outside lives are less important because they don't revolve around children of their own.
Complicated as it can be, it's a good thing we've outgrown the days when keeping a police scanner on your nightstand proved you were committed enough to make it in the news business. Slowly, we've caught on that people who have no lives beyond the newsroom aren't able to identify very well with the communities they cover. It's tough to know what matters to readers, viewers or listeners when all that matters to you is work.
Companies that serve different customers are figuring that out. That was the subject of a second
Morning Edition item that caught my ear recently, featuring a
report by Wendy Kaufman. It's a story CBS'
"60 Minutes" has also done: Electronics retailer Best Buy is using something it calls a
"Results-Oriented Work Environment", or ROWE, to manage turnover and reduce stress among employees in a competitive field.
ROWE means never having to say you're tardy.The gist is this: ROWE means never having to say you're tardy. It means never having to say where you are, either -- only what you've accomplished. That's a bit oversimplified, but not by much. In ROWE, managers measure what people produce, in quantity and quality, but not how much time they spend doing it, or where they choose to do it. Kaufman's piece includes a senior Best Buy manager who says his ROWE-based team outperforms traditional teams doing the same work by 10 to 20 percent -- and loves doing it. In fact, he says, people have resisted promotions that would have entailed leaving the results-oriented work environment.
"I was blown away that by saying 'I trust that you're going to get this work done,' people actually worked harder and produced better-quality outcomes than they had before," the manager told Kaufman. And those outcomes weren't coming from cubicles at Best Buy headquarters, but in some cases from coffee houses, home offices and even back porches.
There are some obvious complications with the notion of putting ROWE concepts to work in the news business -- but it's certainly not unheard-of. Bureau reporters often operate with great autonomy, and love it. Columnists like Belkin have far more latitude with the way they use their time than do general-assignment reporters. And artists, whether they work with still images or video, can create magic at all hours, in some non-traditional work spaces.
I believe there are measurable, meaningful advantages to old-fashioned practices like side-by-side story editing and face-to-face performance appraisal. Spreading people farther apart isn't always a good idea, even if technology makes it possible. But I also believe there are a lot of hours spent in newsrooms for little reason beyond just being there when the boss walks by -- hours that could better be spent out committing journalism: listening, learning, meeting people, asking questions, developing sources, finding stories.
One influence on that is the boss's own behavior. Some editors and news directors assume that their own long hours reflect their dedication to the team, inspire subordinates and even provide comfort by keeping someone in authority almost always at hand. That's not always what we hear from those subordinates here at Poynter. Some say they feel uncomfortable about going home even when their work is done, because the boss is still there. Sometimes, they say, that boss may officially encourage people to maintain work-life balance -- but not-so-subtly note when people leave after "only" eight or nine hours, or reward those who routinely sacrifice family time in the name of news.
Journalism will probably always require a greater commitment than many more civilized jobs. The news business by its nature is more intrusive and demanding than a lot of other fields. The question is whether leaders measure performance by productivity -- considering not just the quantity, but the quality of work -- or more simply by seeing who gets in earliest and goes home latest.
Readers, viewers and listeners clearly care only about outcomes: what's in the newspaper, on the air, online. Readers, viewers and listeners clearly care only about outcomes: what's in the newspaper, on the air, online. As a leader, your concerns are more complex of necessity, but focusing on results doesn't mean disregarding the human element. In fact, it can help journalists do their jobs better and manage what matters in their lives outside of work. That can result in recruiting and retaining the kind of people the news business needs nowadays more than ever.
Posted at 12:00:00 AM
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