Steal your CEO’s advice

This Thursday, 50 newspaper company CEOs met in a closed-door “Crisis Summit” at the American Press Institute (Reston, Virginia). With no publicly available recordings of the proceedings, we don’t have much information, though API staff produced a written summary. Also, one of the participants, Gazette Communications CEO Chuck Peters, posted to Twitter through the day and invited outsiders to join the live online discussion.

Two corporate turnaround specialists guided the CEOs to understand where their companies are at along a crisis curve, and made these recommendations (as reported by the API staff):

• Act like an entrepreneur; stop thinking first about why a new approach won’t work.
• Create a portfolio of initiatives; recognize that some will fail and kill those quickly.
• Don’t wait for every data point before taking action. “Ready, fire, aim” should be the operating principle.
• Use downsizing as a tool when necessary to achieve a larger strategy, not simply as a cost-cutting goal.
• Figure out how to leverage core competencies into new directions and new niches.
• Be honest with employees, and get ideas from those on the front lines.
• Don’t sit and cower and weep about your problems. Inspire.
• Collaborate with outside entities that can bring expertise or resources.
• Pay attention to, and leverage, the brand.

Don’t let the CEOs hog that advice. Those are great recommendations for anyone managing a challenged classifieds operation.

Tags: api