SuperVision

Welcome to the newsroom holiday season of 2008, where company-sponsored gifts, bonuses and parties are merely pleasant, fading memories. Some of your staffers are grumbling (that's tradition, too), but most understand. They've been coping with the economic realities of the news business and given a choice, would rather you protect their employment than their entertainment.

Still, it's Thanksgiving, boss. Time to show gratitude to people who matter to you. That's your management challenge and one I hope you'll approach with creativity and good will.

Read the entire post for the 10 ways managers can say thanks to their team this season.

A news executive recently asked me to name the key leadership skill needed in journalism today. My answer: collaboration.

This doesn't minimize the importance of courage, optimism, motivation, communication, innovation or entrepreneurship; they're also among my favorites. But in today's environment, the most successful leaders will be those who can span old boundaries and inspire others to envision new connections. Those boundaries are mental as well as physical -- from imagining new partnerships, products and processes to restructuring work flow, workspace, teams and roles.

To excel at collaboration, we need to get past some longstanding obstacles. But let me be clear: I'm not accusing or excoriating. I don't subscribe to the "journalism is in trouble because of arrogance" school of thought. That's far too simplistic. To my mind, that's unhelpful anthropomorphism -- more snarky character assassination than helpful business analysis.

I come at this as a student and teacher of organizational development and behavior. The collaboration obstacles I identify exist in newsrooms, but aren't unique to them. They can exist in any workplace, especially those with long histories and traditions. Identifying barriers helps us knock them down.

So, here are my Four Barriers to Collaboration:

• Distance
• Dominance
• Dissonance
• Discomfort