“Less is More,” the notion that shorter commercial breaks – and shorter commercials – can be good for the audience, the advertisers, and the broadcasters, is not the answer to what ails Radio, but it is certainly a bold stroke of leadership in the right direction.
And leadership, I would argue, is what’s sorely lacking in our industry today. Not the kind with the small “l” that’s oriented towards keeping the same old same old. I mean the big “L” kind, the kind that looks to the future and bravely carries us into it. I mean the kind with a vision and a dream. Too often, when Radio’s leaders dream it could better be classified as night sweats.
For vivid illustration of what it takes to lead see the new issue of Fast Company, and read the article on Marcus Bellingham, co-author of past bestsellers like Now, Discover Your Strengths and First, Break All the Rules who has studied what makes great leaders tick in the new book The One Thing You Need to Know…About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success (hopefully, the answer is shorter than that title).
If you don’t have the latest FC issue, go here and enter the access code FCMARFAST50.
Here are some of Bellingham’s core points about leaders, drawn from this article:
– A leader’s job is to rally people toward a better future – A leader must turn our fear of the future into confidence by clearly defining our direction in vivid terms – A leader’s job is to make their people more confident about the future – A leader knows his/her company’s core strength and focuses on that relentlessly – A leader takes action
I’m only scratching the surface. See the article for more good stuff. And hope that Radio’s leaders do too.