Can CNN Be Saved?

Hank Price

Chris Licht should have gone down in history as the leader who returned CNN to glory. Instead, he leaves a trail of turmoil, wreckage and disappointment.

With his background as a successful program producer, Licht seemed to be the right person to lead a troubled organization that had lost its way. I even wrote a column urging critics to stop rushing to judgement and give him a chance to succeed.

What none of us realized was that Licht had been miscast. The job was bigger than he was.

Turnarounds require strong personalities with an innate sense of empathy combined with the ability to focus on a goal. Constant visibility and never-ending encouragement are core requisites. Turnaround leaders are especially steady during setbacks, showing the flag and reminding everyone that stumbles are part of the process.

The best leaders understand that speeches and detailed strategic plans don’t actually fix anything. That’s because employees start out scared and are unwilling to trust promises. They want to see results, not details that make their eyes glaze over. Employees will understand a simply stated goal and two or three action points, but actual belief without proof is too much to ask.

There will also be those within the organization still rooting for the old team. The most vocal must be removed like a cancerous growth, but the majority are willing to wait and see, and thus savable. Few will make an emotional commitment either way until the new strategy begins to play out. Even small wins can start to energize a staff, but no one gets fully on board until they begin to see hard results.

Bad press? There will always be bad press. The only acceptable reaction is none at all, not just publicly but in private conversations. When employees bring the subject up, the answer is “Yes, I’m aware of what they wrote, but criticism is part of the process. It doesn’t affect what we do.”

Looking at all this, it is clear Licht simply did not have the leadership skills to do the job.

Yes, Licht had an impressive track record, especially with the CBS morning news. What we all overlooked was that Licht was a producer, not a leader. Suddenly placed in charge of a large and complex organization, he did not have the right experience to succeed.

As we’ve seen too often in the past, people who get in over their head are rarely given the time to learn from their mistakes. That is what happened to Licht.

It also appears that Licht was not introspective enough to understand why he was failing. A final admission that perhaps he should not have moved his office out of the newsroom and onto a higher floor is not enough to count. Moving out of the newsroom was not just a mistake, it was a signal to every employee that their new boss was unapproachable and cared not a whit for them.

Licht also failed to grasp the simple truth that leadership is really about relationships. Jeff Zucker’s constant presence in the newsroom molded the staff to his vision. Licht seemed to have forgotten where the newsroom was.

Speaking of Zucker, yes, he was always in the background, heaping on criticism, but frankly, that only mattered because Licht allowed it to. Criticism from the person you replaced also goes with the territory.

Perhaps the saddest thing of all is that Licht went out apologizing. People must wonder if he ever believed his own vision.

With the Licht era officially over, the question now is what happens to CNN?

There is a management theory that the first step in doing a turnaround is to bring in a temporary leader to make the hard decisions and absorb the hate before a permanent leader is named.

That’s not the case here because other than finally removing Don Lemon and some improvement in balance, Licht seemed to think believers in CNN’s previous course would change simply because he told them to. He did make tough decisions, such as putting Trump in the spotlight, but great execution always seemed to be elusive.

Looking forward, the organization is now in worse shape than it was when Licht arrived.

If CNN is to have any chance of becoming a respected news organization again, David Zaslav must install a world-class leader; something very hard to find. Empathy, triage skills and healing wounds are obvious starting places, but that person must also be strong enough to create a joint vision for the future. The strength to stand up to Zaslav will also be required.

The leader CNN needs now is likely already running a large organization, thus difficult to recruit. Perhaps the challenge will be enough, but it will probably take much more than that.

Let’s hope Zaslav beats the odds and finds the right person quickly. Otherwise, to quote Murrow, “Good night, and good luck.”

Hank Price spent 30 years leading television stations for Hearst, CBS and Gannett while concurrently building a career in executive education. He is the author of Leading Local Television and two other books.