Conversations in Management
With
that, "Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy," came out with both guns
blazing. Change was in the winds (or at least on the airwaves)
and Gene Autry was determined to be a trailblazer. The change
he was talking about was television. After much deliberation,
Autry had decided to produce a weekly series for the
controversial new industry. The Gene Autry Show premiered
on July 23, 1950 and was an immediate hit with the small but
enthusiastic TV audience. The success wasn't exactly accidental.
The show was the most expensive ever produced for television. It
was shot on location and incorporated techniques that were new
for the medium. Autry realized that long range action shots that
worked effectively in his movies wouldn't work on small
television screens, so he shot most of the action head on. He
also made extensive use of close-ups to capitalize on the
intimacy of the TV experience. Of course music played a big part
in any Autry production and TV was no exception. Each "film" as
they were called had 80% background music against a 30% industry
standard and there was always at least one song. He even shot 16
episodes in color!
None of
this seems particularly threatening until you remember that in
the early days of TV, the movie industry was in full panic.
Everyone from the studio head to the kid selling popcorn at the
local theater feared that television would mark the end of their
industry. They viewed Autry as a traitor to the medium that had
made him great and they publicly accused him of inflicting
"financial suffering" on over 16,000 theatres nationwide. In
protest, movie houses began cancelling contracts to show new
Autry films and stopped showing re-releases of his older shows.
But America's Favorite Cowboy was not to be deterred and
as the sun set on this chapter of our cultural history; he was
still riding high in the saddle.
The
entertainment landscape has a whole new look since Autry fought
those early skirmishes with the studios and theater owners.
There's one thing, though, that's still the same—change and
folk’s reaction to it. Popular wisdom nowadays is that change is
inevitable so people better just get used to it. But that's only
partially true. While there will always be some degree of
change, we should never be complacent about it. That's because
not all change is good. Sometimes things change because of
fads. An enterprising fellow with good marketing skills
writes a book and suddenly everyone starts adopting fanciful job
titles, applying feng shui to the filing system and making
geriatric employees do trust falls. America loves fads and if
you find your office adopting one as standard practice—watch
out! This kind of change only lasts until the next big thing
comes along.
Some
change is a matter of surrender. One of the worst, but
most common change initiatives, is the dreaded "work around."
This happens when a fear of conflict makes folks implement new
processes that side-step a hard to get along with co-worker or
an antiquated policy. Too many folks believe that a drop in
morale and productivity is a good trade off for not having to
face problems head-on. Unlike fad based change that comes and
goes, this kind of change can impede effectiveness for
generations. Every office can probably find at least a couple of
examples of things that are legacy work arounds. The
problem person or policy may be gone, but the work around
lives on.
Gene
Autry's advice is well taken when we face change today. It's
nothing we should run away from, but let's figure out the
benefits before we give it a headlong embrace. When we do that,
it will be something worth yodeling about!
—Ebert
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