Clifford Teutsch trying to show he understands how reporters must be feeling after the latest memo from the parent company’s suits. He’s trying to be reassuring. He’s trying to clear things up.
He accomplishes the opposite.
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From: [Hartford Courant executive editor] Teutsch, Clifford
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 6:17 PM
To: Courant News Staff
Folks,
Some of you have raised questions regarding today’s communications from Randy and Sam.
I can give you some answers now and more in coming days. We are going to have to make significant newshole and staff reductions. I will give you specific numbers as soon as they are finalized and I can share them. We want you to know what we face. We will be asking for your help in re-inventing the paper. We’ll let you know the process and timetable soon.
Randy said that Tribune newspapers have reviewed the productivity of writers. I was asked to count bylines and look at numbers of stories for people in comparable jobs, i.e. town reporters, sports reporters, investigative reporters. I did that. It’s nothing new for us; we often look at byline counts when we do annual evals. If something jumps out at us from the numbers we explore it further with the writer. There is no hard formula, no right number, no minimum, etc., etc.
For the review that Randy referred to, we didn’t count unsigned briefs or web stories. Some people do far more of this work than others. All of us are smart enough to know that numbers are just one imperfect indicator of productivity. Some stories are much harder to do than others, etc. Also, I hope I don’t need to say we are focused on quality as well as quantity. We will continue to spend weeks and months on stories that are worth it. By the way, as far as the numbers go, Courant writers as a whole were very productive.
I will get you more information as soon as possible. If you have a concern, please talk with me.
Cliff
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I’m sure they did have a concern, but I doubt they talked to Cliff.
I didn’t have that negative of a reaction, but:
All of us are smart enough to know that numbers are just one imperfect indicator of productivity.
Sure was a lot of focus on it.
On this one, I disagree. We’ve had this debate extensively before, and we (that being the royal we of all David’s blog followers) I think agreed that it is never easy to communicate this kind of impending bad news for employees, nor will it ever be perfect.
That said, this memo is straight-forward about what specific actions have been, and will be taken in relation to the cost cutting that is required.
He also says this is a preliminary message with the promise of more detail to come, suggesting that he has communicated early in the process (Note: as I’m not familiar with the specifics of this situation I’m going just from what you’ve posted David) which is another positive thing to do in this type of scenario. Too often you hear that “We don’t want to communicate anything until we have all the answers” BS which vitually guarantees that rumours will snowball and panic ensue.
Finally, he suggests that employees will be asked for their help in reinventing the paper. Again, not knowing the specifics, this could be an empty platitude, but it could also be a genuine willingness to consider realistic alternatives offered by employees to regain profitability.
All things considered, I don’t think this is a bad communication at all.
I’m with Kristen. David, had you been he, what would you have written or done?
I know this is a tough one, hence my title, “Employee communication is hard.” To be honest, I’m not sure WHAT he should have said, partly because I don’t know his relationship with the employees, how they think of him, etc.
And of course I appreciate his instinct to communicate SOMETHING rather than nothing, and to mediate between the big honchos and the workers.
That said, I simply don’t think this communication accomplishes anything. All he really says is, “Yes, I know you got a memo from the Trib Co. bosses, and yes I know you’re upset.”
Beyond that, what do employees really learn from the rest of it, either about Cliff’s attitude about the shrinking staff and newshole, or about how the company is going about it.
The longer he goes on about byline counts vs. journalistic quality, the more mysterious the criteria by which the layoffs are going to be performed.
I guess I’d recommend a shorter piece, briefly acknowledging the corporate memo, throwing himself in with employees as being worried and concerned and offering to answer any questions employees have about how productivity is being measured …..
Basically, this memo offers too much detail without any real information, and it’s scarier than it is comforting.
Don’t you agree?
Despite the best intentions.
David
Man, I am so glad I’m not in the newspaper business right now.
As for the memo, I agree with Kristen that it’s an honest attempt to communicate something, which, generally speaking, is better than nothing. If all it really conveys is, yes, I’m worried about this too and I’ll help get us through this as fairly and painlessly as possible, that’s fine.
But in circumstances like this employees tend to parse every line of a communication like this and there’s too much obtuse prose about how people are to be judged without actually telling them exactly how they’ll be judged — which, in the end, will be arbitrarily, as always. So as much good as it does, it also is perpetuating, and perhaps even adding to, the anxiety and doubt.