Course Description, Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program

Prior to the official start date, Fellows will be expected to identify the most critical strategic, innovation, content, business and other challenges confronting their news organizations.

Leading academic and industry authorities will guide Fellows through classroom lectures, panel sessions and breakout discussions in the following areas:

• Journalistic values
• The Digital Revolution
• Strategy
• Marketing
• Community demographics
• Business models
• Management economics
• Budgeting
• Ethical decision making
• First Amendment challenges
• Industry and ownership structures
• Effective communication skills
• Personal performance skills
• Leadership

Case studies will be tailored to the most pressing issues facing the media industry.

Phase I

During the first week on campus, together with peers, Fellows will work with their advisors to discuss how this course content can best be used to meet the specific opportunities of and obstacles to achieving success in their own workplace performance. Toward the end of this first session, Fellows will be ready to begin thinking about whether they need to adjust or modify the nature of their selected challenge, and will start strategizing on how to convert their challenge into a specific set of initiatives for change in their organizations. .

Phase II

Over the following six to eight weeks at their organizations, Fellows will experiment with modifying their strategies and goals. They will then gather over a weekend at a designated site with a select subgroup of peers and the group’s assigned advisor to finalize project goals, and create a communications and strategic game plan. They will also be assigned the next set of steps to help them proceed with their project.

For a period of four to five months, Fellows will continue to interact with their assigned advisor and peers – mainly by phone and email – as they progress toward their goals. By the second session at Columbia’s campus, Fellows should be ready to present a progress report to share with the class.

Throughout this process, Fellows will learn how best to communicate with and lead others in their companies. They will become familiar with the typical phases of leading change – the hallmarks that distinguish launching, building momentum and transitioning to completion. Each participant will find his or her own way through these phases, but all are expected to succeed, and the assignments following the second session are customized to ensure each participant is progressing towards success

Phase III

The third week-long session at Columbia’s campus will shift the balance of focus from individual projects or challenges to a blend of discussions that involves determining the leadership qualities needed by the news industry to ensure that journalistic values and business success are mutually reinforcing. Fellows will be expected to produce another progress report prior to this session. These reports will influence faculty in shaping the content of the final session to best cultivate continued progress – as well as how to use each participant’s sustained effort as the context for discussing some of the most pressing challenges facing the industry as a whole.

This session will specifically be devoted to discussing how news businesses can incorporate the legitimate concern for value—money, profits, competitive competence -- with an equally legitimate concern for values involved with the gathering and presentation of news and information. Following the third session, Fellows will produce reports that deconstruct the steps they took to reach their final outcomes for publication on the Sulzberger Program website and for possible use in subsequent programs.

The official end of the program will be marked by a presentation of certificates during a one or two-day feedback session that will include invitations to the Fellow’s CEO and top executives.

Results

• Attain insight into what is needed to succeed in the 21st century news
business through lectures and seminars taught by the best industry and
academic leaders.

• Gain an extraordinary opportunity to grow as a leader and instruct others in your
company to tackle and achieve success against one of the most demanding
challenges facing your institution.