Hunter S. Thompson we weren't. Instead of "
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," Candy Altman and I were in
the city of glitz under the banner of "Balance and Harmony."
Our
RTNDA convention session was billed as "Creating
Work-Life Balance." Candy and I
half-jokingly predicted that, with luck, three people would attend. After all, it was the last day of the
convention, and people who wanted balance in their lives might have already
headed for home.
The joke was on us. People showed up. And in the
post-session evaluations, one said it was "the best, most relevant session I've
been to at the convention."
I guess we're on to something.
Candy is a VP of news for the Hearst-Argyle stations
group. We're both working moms, both
former news directors who now help other newsrooms -- she from a corporate
supervisory perch, and I from a management teaching and consulting
perspective. Both of us are hearing from
men and women in broadcast newsrooms. They're concerned that their work-life balance is out of whack and
might never get better.
That's why we developed the session for the RTNDA
convention, drawing on a Poynter work-life balance survey I conducted last year and a quiz we crafted to help people assess their own
situations.
We also incorporated testimonials from news managers who
have made changes in their lives and management styles, changes that helped
them ease the pressures that affect our health and happiness at work and at
home.
We looked at problems and solutions:
The problems? My survey concluded that work-life issues:
- Are
real and troubling in newsrooms.
- Affect
managers more than rank-and-file.
- Are
more likely to lead the youngest, the female and racial and ethnic minorities
to consider leaving journalism.
- Don't
necessarily need radical solutions.
Small but sincere accommodations of family or personal needs by
immediate supervisors can make a big difference to employees.
- Can be
an opportunity to build commitment. Bosses who demonstrate care for the
whole lives of their employees generate great loyalty.
Then we got personal, with a quiz. Care to take it yourself to see how you're
doing? Here goes:
Work-Life
Harmony Survey
RTNDA@NAB 2006
Candy Altman and Jill
Geisler
Please
answer the following questions. Grade yourself from 0 to 5, with 5 as the most
positive response.
Work:
- I feel happy and
fulfilled in my current job.
_________
2. I am comfortable with the shift/schedule/hours I
work. __________
3. I feel I set priorities and schedule my time
well. __________
4. My bosses tell me I'm doing good work. _________
- If I work long hours,
it is noticed and appreciated; if hours get too long, I can turn to my
boss for help. __________
Self:
- I take good care of
myself. _________
- I get satisfaction from
my work. _________
- I have interests
outside of work and I make time for them.
_________
- I make a point to
re-charge my batteries in constructive ways. _________
- If I am under stress, I
find constructive ways to cope.
__________
Others:
- I feel good about the
way I'm meeting my family responsibilities. _________
- People close to me are
supportive of the demands that come with my job. _______
- I'm satisfied with the
social life I lead outside work.
_________
- My work does not
interfere with my important relationships.
__________
- Twenty years from now,
I will look back and say I made great choices in balancing my work and
personal commitments. _______
Scoring:
60-75:
Congratulations! You have found ways
to keep your work and life in harmony.
Think about the choices you make, the people who
support you at work and home, make sure they know how grateful you are for the
role they play.
45-59:
Modest applause -- You are doing
fairly well. In what areas could you
improve?
Who, in addition to you, can help? Who has control? What should you do more of or less of?
30-44:
Sigh -- Time to make some
changes. You deserve better.
What's getting in the
way of your happiness, balance or harmony? What must change and how are
you going to make it happen? Who can help?
Under
30: Gasp -- Clearly, your situation
is serious.
Your life isn't what you
want it to be and you are hurting. Consider talking to your boss and your loved
ones -- and don't hesitate to get help from an expert, too.
Hard data and quiz scores
are informative, but it was the personal stories from news managers that
provided real-world insights in our session. Here are three of them:
Kate O'Brian, vice-president and general manager of ABC News One, told the group about her
beautiful daughter's struggle with anorexia -- and a treatment plan that required
a parent to be with the teenager at each meal.
If she had to, O'Brian would have taken a leave to do her share
of the
mealtime duty -- but because her bosses crafted a creative work schedule
for her, and encouraged her to leave when she needed to -- she was able
to find the
balance she needed to help her daughter. Her advice to colleagues: Be as creative and flexible as you can as a
boss. Learn to delegate; you aren't as
important as you may think you are. Be aware of the human side of the people
you manage, and recognize that the care you extend is repaid by the kind of
loyalty she feels for her employers.
Kingsley Smith, assistant news
director of KDFW-TV in Dallas, Texas, sent his message
to the group on videotape, because he was minding the newsroom while
his boss,
Maria Barrs, attended the convention. Smith spoke from a baseball
diamond. He's serving as a coach for his young son's softball team this
season. It means every other week he'll
leave the newsroom around 5 p.m. He worked
out a co-coaching schedule with another volunteer, made sure his news
director
is on board with the plan, and set up contingencies in case breaking
news
causes him to miss a game. His advice: Do good work while you're at
work, plan carefully, communicate constantly with
your boss, and you can make something like this work for you.
Polly Van Doren-Orr, news director of KOLR/KDEB-TV in Springfield, Mo., talked gently but
firmly about depression. She told the
group about her journey as a person who has lived with depression for years and
treated it with the help of doctors. But last year, she decided to check
herself into inpatient treatment, or "Club Head," as she called it. She had the complete support of her bosses,
local and corporate, and told her entire staff where she was and why she was
there. She delegated work to them, and
to her great pride, they rose to the challenge.
Her message: Don't be afraid. Depression is an illness. It is
nothing to be ashamed of. There's help
available. She's living proof that you
can manage through it with the help of caring bosses and capable staffers.
She made an impact. In the post-session evaluations, one of the
participants wrote that he intended to seek medical attention when he got home,
and added "Polly's presentation was the most meaningful to me in 25
years of RTNDA panels." Can you imagine
how good Polly feels about that?
The evaluations asked
participants what they learned from the session, or what they might do as a
result of it. Among the replies:
- Empower staff to make more decisions without me
- Allow myself a lunch break
- Delegate, delegate, delegate!
- Trust your employees
- Make sure I interview my managers as much as
they're interviewing me -- to make sure they have the right corporate
culture
- Become more organized so I don't screw my folks
- Organize my day -- organize my life
- Balance takes work and without it you can
diminish your results and those of others.
Though the session was billed as "Creating Work-Life
Balance," you might have noted that there's a different title on the quiz we
prepared. Candy and I decided to
substitute another word for "balance."
As Candy pointed out, "balance" is almost impossible, as it implies
equilibrium -- which is truly elusive.
We're forever juggling our many responsibilities and priorities -- so
balance can shift by situation. We opted
instead to talk about "The Search for Harmony."
Our lives may never be quite in balance, but we can do a
better job of orchestrating their many facets.
You sound as if you've had a really terrible experience...
