Fisher Communications: Informed Consent
IT
Written by John Zorabedian   
Saturday, 01 March 2008
Fisher Communications: Informed Consent - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
In the information age, even media companies must embrace transparency. CEO Colleen Brown describes her philosophy of communication management.
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Access to information is power, a truism that corporate executives and managers must learn to embrace. And in the Internet age, information-intensive companies such as broadcasters have begun to adjust to more of a give and take with media consumers, as well as their own employees.

Fisher Communications: Informed Consent - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
CEO Colleen Brown
Seattle-based Fisher Communications, Inc. has embraced a strategy similar to many media companies that seek a greater integration of the Internet in its production and dissemination of news. But this new model is still being developed as more technologies, more media, and more people participate. Fisher CEO Colleen Brown describes the new media landscape as the “wild west.”

Fisher’s adjustment to this landscape did not happen overnight. The company had been unprofitable for five years when Brown took over as CEO in 2005. The new leadership’s strategic plan for turning the company around recognized the importance of investing in better local news, breaking down barriers between management and the company’s stations, and driving a culture change to embrace the new reality.

Fisher turned profits in 2006 and 2007 due to several factors, including the divestiture of small low-power stations, concentration of efforts in seven key western markets, and expanded access to the rapidly growing Spanish-speaking market through the purchase of four Univision affiliated television stations.

“The plan  created credibility, not only among our team members, the employees, but also with Wall Street and the investors,” Brown said. “It was a powerful transformation plan because it helped galvanize the team to have something to believe in and commit to the change.”

The company’s leadership worked to restructure the organization, focusing on investments in areas that would improve the company’s cash flow, margins, and sales. “We have a traditional reengineering process,” Brown said. “We eliminated some radio stations, we standardized a lot of the processes, we consolidated where we could, we automated, and we even outsourced on occasion.”
Yet the major challenge was the disconnect between corporate management and individual stations isolated in their markets. For a 98-year-old company that began as a flour miller, and then a real estate interest, different business lines and media acquisitions created a fractured infrastructure. “Everyone viewed themselves separately and really didn’t think about the other stations,” Brown said. “Isolation was taking its toll.”

Hub and spokes
Developing a new culture across stations depended on mutual respect and inspiring an attitude of winning—breaking stories, beating the competition, and building strong and sustainable ratings. “If you sit back and start resting, your competitors will pass you,” Brown said. “Anyone in this business would agree that you always have to strive to be first.”

Creating a winning culture requires having the right people, especially in leadership positions. Those leaders must inspire and cultivate employees who have a real passion for the work, are committed to the turnaround, and have an insatiable curiosity. “It takes a crazy work ethic,” Brown said. “That defines the people we look for and how we get our work done.”

It also requires respect for those who are leading the efforts in the field with local knowledge. For Fisher’s corporate executives, it requires some devolving of power to the individual stations and their teams. “We’re all after the same thing, and that’s winning,” Brown said. “We try not to get too territorial. But there’s a fine balance between having each station run locally and providing support from corporate.”

The key to walking that fine line is a management philosophy that embraces transparency. “My management style and the management philosophy here is not hierarchical,” she said. “I believe the management style of the future is more circular in nature. Transparency has changed business, especially when you work in a very informed constituency as I do.”

Brown said management at Fisher resembles a wheel with a hub and spokes. Although the corporate office in Seattle is the wheel’s hub, the spokes run through Yakima, Wash., Bakersfield Calif., Portland, Ore., and all of the company’s markets. And rather than acting in isolation, the individual markets are interconnected and mutually accountable, relying on each other as potential sources of information, experience, and expertise.

Internet evolution
Getting the model right for new media is an evolutionary process, and all media companies are experimenting with developments including user-generated content, citizen journalism, and blogging. In some ways, the cacophony of voices in the new media landscape means everyone is a participant, and everyone is on stage.

Brown recently gave a presentation to graduate students at the University of Washington, and she marvels at the new generation’s attitudes toward the Internet, privacy, and sharing information. “They are recording their lives in a way that no one else has in history,” she said.
Brown’s question for the students, and for all of us, is “how does our world change if all of us are on stage? Does it lessen or strengthen accountability?”

Brown said that she does not know the answer to that question. Yet her management philosophy is the essence of accountability. “Everyone has about the same information at about the same time,” she said. “Our job as senior management is to tap into the best decisionmakers who have the best information.”
 
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