The time is at hand to reassess your management structure and methods before it's too late.

By William Dunkerley

Is your way of managing up to snuff for the challenges that have beset us this year? Will it serve you well for whatever the economy has in store?

"The Coronavirus Recession Will Be Deeper and Faster Than the Financial Crisis" said a Barron's headline back in April.

Now, months later, sources are disagreeing whether a recession is coming or going!

The Economist is saying that "a recovery is taking shape." NBC News is reporting that "economic recovery has come faster than anticipated."

At the same time, Bloomberg is posing the question "When will the economy recover?" CNN declares this to be "the worst economic crisis in living memory."

You can take your pick of storylines. Nonetheless, it is prudent for publishers to be prepared for the worst. That preparation should include scrutinizing your approach to publication management.

Past Management as a Predictor of Future Success

In the past, economic downturns have not impacted all publishers in the same way. Some have actually been able to accomplish gains. Others, though, have gone out of business.

What's made the difference?

An important factor is how a publication was managed before the economic disturbance hit. It is possible to make corrections while the downturn is still in progress. But some wait until it is too late.

Item: A panicking publisher contacts me asking for help to sell his publication. He's put a lot of money into it. Now he's starting to lose money. His usual business practices can't turn the tide. He figures the money he put into the business represents equity. Now he wants to cash out.

The sorry answer for this publisher is that his publication isn't worth anything close to what he put into it. I had to explain to him that for an interested party wanting to publish in his field, it would be cheaper to start from scratch.

There is a pattern I've observed of how publishers get themselves into this kind of position. It does not always result in the bitter ending the cited publisher experienced, but it does cause a lot of discomfort and business losses.

What precipitates that pattern? Usually it is that the publisher never had in place a good management plan and business strategies. In the publishing business it is often easy to coast along producing content, selling advertising, and aggregating audience -- all while functioning at a suboptimal level of performance. That does not become problematic until the economy hits a snag. Then business as usual is no longer sustainable.

Establishing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

There is a management tool that can help remedy that predicament. It is called OKR: objectives and key results. OKRs establish a goal-setting framework. It guides you to establish objectives. The next step is, for each objective, to identify the key results needed to achieve it. Then concretely measure the actions needed to achieve the desired result.

In one sense the use of OKRs is a top-down activity. First you have to establish the objectives and key results for your company as a whole. But then you work your way down into your organizational structure to each department and each position in that department. This should be done as a participative and collaborative activity with all those involved, not autocratically.

We'll walk through this process in future issues. First we'll create a generic organizational structure for a magazine publishing company. Then we’ll go through the process of creating OKRs for the organization as a whole. Then we'll go on to the department level and finally to positions within each department. We will spread this out over several issues, as many as it takes.

Reexamining and changing a company's management structure and approach is a serious undertaking. If not done properly, it can go astray.

A Case Study in Poor Managerial Change

Here's one example that comes to mind: The board of directors fired the publisher. She had been running the company efficiently for quite a few years. The only problem is that there was no growth. Opportunities were being missed. The underlying cause was the publisher's autocratic style. She was a super micromanager. That thwarted employee initiative. The company had stagnated when the publisher had reached her personal limits for what she could directly control.

The new publisher was brought in to change that. He was given a mandate to push responsibilities and decision making down into the organization. Instead of requiring staff members to seek approval for any expenditures that were not routine, he set up departmental budgets.

On the surface that was a smart move. However, the budgets were set for the whole year. There was no provision for adapting plans as circumstances evolved and changed. That set up a pattern of rigidity.

Managers were evaluated on whether they met their budget projections. That created three unfavorable situations. The first, of course, is that managers lacked the ability to adapt to unexpected circumstances. The second is that it made them risk averse. Certainty in meeting budget goals was more important than trying new things. The third is that this system disincentivized overachievement. So, for instance, if the marketing manager saw an opportunity to increase sales, she would be faced with that increasing her goal for next year. Thus it was safer for her to just meet current projections and not put forth any extra effort.

We'll show how to avoid those and other pitfalls as we explore together in future issues incorporating OKRs into your management methods.

William Dunkerley is principal of William Dunkerley Publishing Consultants, www.publishinghelp.com.

Add your comment.