"Change is your friend, disguised as your enemy": some thoughts on culture change in media

“Change is your friend, disguised as your enemy”, someone smart said to me once, and it really resonated.?

Working as an independent digital consultant now, and before that in leadership roles at the BBC and Culture Trip , I am used to dealing with change in news media/content publishing setting on a daily basis. Regardless of circumstances and irrespective of whether you drive change or are on a receiving end of it, above all, we do learn to deal with resistance, uncertainty and anxiety. As humans, we are fantastic at both adapting to change and collaborating with others while doing it - the two key ingredients for future successes and optimism. We all just need a bit of help and support.?

Based on that sentiment, I was very excited to be invited to provide some insights as well as to write the foreword (the first one in my working life!) to The Cultural Ignition Guide to Help Activate Cultural Change for News Publishers, created by WAN-IFRA and supported by Facebook Journalism Project .

“Organization is like the human body. It needs viruses, so the body can learn how to survive and remain strong” - this unattributed Japanese quote describes the main component of culture change perfectly - we know of many real-life examples when companies failed to adapt because they were structurally unable to accept and incorporate visible changes around them. Disrupt yourself, they say.?A brilliant IMB and PCs example comes to mind.

“I’d rather be green and growing instead of ripe, ready to rot’’, John Maeda, a distinguished US designer, technologist and teacher, wrote famously in his seminal “Redesigning Leadership” book, arguably one of the best works on the subject ever created. It sends a message to leaders of the day, that they should really know their ‘under the hood’ stuff, more so now than, perhaps, ever before. Change starts with you.?

Culture change means different things to different people, though. And in my work, I address all of the points below.

It’s about people: achieving internal staff buy-in, relaxing people, empowering changemakers, saying no with empathy, leading effectively.

It’s also about processes: being audience-centric, failing quickly and learning from it, applying user needs to everything you do , aligning content and product disciplines, agreeing your North Star, letting others get you there (“Future leaders must be stubborn on vision but flexible on details” - Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder) through joint OKRs.?

It’s about organisational self-improvement: bridge roles, that we grew to love and rely on so much, making themselves redundant in the process, while C-suite gets reverse-mentored by junior team members.?

It’s about overcommunication: only when you are tired from your own voice repeating the same thing over and over, chances are that your message is starting to land.?

This actionable, helpful report* (another link to is at the bottom of this article) is going to be equally useful to those in senior leadership positions or those preparing for a bigger role, but also, especially to those who are only starting to think about leading others one day. Digital transformation has no end, and everyone must play their role in it - firstly by changing their own mindset, and then by changing others.?

“Complete digital transformation is neither possible nor, even, desirable. Everyone wanting to lead must share the role of CMO – Chief Mindset Officer” (Minter Dial, Caleb Storkey, Futureproof ) - another phrase I use a lot in my work.

Let’s all add that great title to our CVs, friends!?Happy reading!?

*Facebook Journalism Project and WAN-IFRA Launch The Cultural Ignition Guide to Help Activate Cultural Change for News Publishers

Please do get in touch - you can reach me either here or on Twitter?@dmitryshishkin ?- I?am interested in content creation, digital products, innovation, digital transformation, synthetic media, developing world and other exciting things this decade is so rich of. I consult media and tech companies as well as those in other sectors moving into content creation.