CIOs Learn Leadership Insights from Elvis

If you’re looking for a headline that encapsulates what’s wrong with American journalism, look no further than Jobs: Windows is hell (Computerworld, May 31, 2007).

What Jobs actually said, in a conversation with Walter Mossberg, was, “We’ve got cards and letters from lots of people that say iTunes is their favorite app on Windows.” He then wisecracked, “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”

If Steve Jobs got a bad sunburn and I described him as being “red as a lobster,” I guess Computerworld could then run the headline, Lewis: Jobs is a crustacean.

And now, American journalism is about to become even worse. The publication most likely to run the headline Steve Jobs is a Crustacean! will soon be a memory. On August 27th the Weekly World News (WWN) will publish its final edition.

That’s right: The publication that described the travails of Bat Boy, and the horrific scene that unfolded when a Crazed Dieter Mistakes Dwarf for Chicken, will no longer break stories like Hillary Clinton’s love affair with P’lod, the space alien.

What went wrong? To understand, you first have to understand what went right.

It started when the National Enquirer bought new color presses. Rather than leave the old ones idle, the Enquirer‘s then owner, former CIA agent, Generoso Pope, founded WWN to cover stories that were too hot for the Enquirer.

WWN ticked along until a character named Eddie Clontz took over as managing editor.

He created magic.

No, not the magic of headlines like Heaven Photographed by Hubble Telescope. That magic came from WWN‘s editorial staff. What Clontz created was one of those magical work environments that allows brilliance to flourish.

In WWN‘s case, “brilliance” had a special meaning. It was brilliance nonetheless — what other word would you use to describe a story like Plane Missing Since 1939 Lands with Skeleton at the Controls?

Those who wrote for WWN in its heyday uniformly described it as a phenomenal work environment — the sort of place where, as one writer put it, “There were days when I would leave work with my stomach and my face hurting from laughing all day at the ideas being kicked around.”

Very few of us have had the opportunity to work in that sort of environment. I know many people, though, who remember a particular work team with singular fondness. The exact chemistry differs from one account to the next, but they all have one characteristic in common: Superb chemistry among everyone on the work team.

Few leaders manage to create this sort of atmosphere. Clontz was one. William M. Gaines, the original publisher of Mad magazine was, by all accounts, another. Both kept things loose. Both, it appears, knew how to keep small frictions from growing into big frictions. How? Their shared strategy was to keep the atmosphere fun.

There are other strategies that also work — shared dedication to an important mission, for example. Still, don’t sell fun short. It has a lot going for it.

What happened at WWN was that … I’m not making this up … a guy named David Pecker bought American Media, which owns WWN. He replaced Clontz and much of his crew with a new team, composed mostly of comedy writers. They maintained the formula, but lost the magic.

What can you learn from this sad tale?

Business leaders take over successful work teams from time to time. It might be because they were hired to do so, or because of a merger or acquisition. Whatever the reason, if you find yourself in this circumstance, remember that your watchword is finesse, not authority.

Before you do anything to “place your stamp” on the organization, first spend at least a month learning the magic — learning all of the interpersonal dynamics that have made the team successful. Then spend another month or two to integrate yourself into the magic.

Later on you might have to make changes. That’s okay — you’re allowed to, and often have to. If you first become part of the magic, you’ll be less likely to wreck it when you do.

Peter Carlson wrote the WWN‘s obituary in the Washington Post. It’s my source for the facts in this week’s column. It’s a beautiful piece of writing, so it’s only fair to give Peter the final word.

“Reporters loved the Weekly World News,” he wrote.” Many fantasized about working for it and casting aside the tired old conventions of journalism, such as printing facts.”

Isn’t it worth trying to create an environment that allows employees to turn their fantasies … their work-related fantasies … into reality?