Terry Horne had a why. He just needed a how.
He knew newspapers had to change because of the trends he’d watched during his 30-plus years in the industry. He saw Internet competition creep up, combating newspapers’ recruitment advertising revenue with free job listing sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.
So when Horne stepped in as president of Orange County Register Communications Inc. in September 2007, he’d already been touting his case for several years. He called his presentation The Perfect Storm. At industry gatherings, he repeated the message that newspapers must diversify because of Internet innovation and changing readership patterns.
In his new position, which included the role of publisher for the Orange County Register newspaper, he introduced himself with that presentation. He adapted it to the Register with local data that showed classified revenue and audience levels spiraling downward while advertising prices scaled up.
He shared his vision of the Register — like any newspaper that would be successful in the future — becoming a multimedia corporation, stretching its Internet base as it diversified advertisers.
“When you’re expecting an organization to change, you have to create a vision of what it looks like when the change is complete,” Horne says. “You’ve got to create a vision of what happens if the change doesn’t happen.”
He was blunt about the alternative, using the worst-case scenario to motivate employees.
“You have to say there will be [companies] that go out of business,” he says. “My commitment is that this change is definitely going to happen because it has to happen. You have to express confidence that you know what needs to be done in big, broad brushstrokes — maybe not specifically —because they’re in a better position to know that.”
So Horne’s missing piece was his base of about 1,300 employees. He knew the industry had to make changes, but he turned to them for the details, like how the company would fulfill that broad vision and what changes would take it there.
“Most people that make big changes in businesses that are effective are not coming in [saying], ‘I’ve got answers. You guys go do them,’” says Horne, whose company saw estimated 2008 revenue of $245 million. “They’re saying, ‘We need answers. You help me find the answers,’ and then you help make them reality.”