As the Globe turns

Thinking outside the (big) box; column cutting

by Dan Kennedy

Which of the following doesn't belong, and why? William Randolph Hearst. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger. Katharine Graham. Sam Walton.

If you answered Walton - the head of Wal-Mart, the ultimate big-box-style retail emporium that has crushed the life out of more downtowns than Godzilla - well, give yourself a gold star. Hearst, Sulzberger, and Graham, of course, were legendary newspaper publishers.

Oddly enough, however, it was Walton, not Sulzberger or Graham, whom some 40 top managers of the Boston Globe were urged to emulate at a recent management retreat at the castle-like Blantyre, a tony resort in the Berkshires - "America's Consummate Estate Sanctuary," according to its Web site, and with rooms costing from $325 to $700 a night, it damn well better be.

Among the speakers at the two-and-a-half-day late-October retreat was one Ram Charan, a management consultant and the author of such tomes as Boards at Work, Every Business Is a Growth Business, and The Leadership Pipeline. According to an internal Globe memo (a copy of which was thoughtfully, though anonymously, mailed to the Phoenix), Charan "stressed that new opportunities can be found in so-called mature businesses like the Globe's. He noted, for instance, that Wal-Mart created a new model in what was thought to be the mature business of retailing. Wal-Mart vanquished once successful operations such as Sears and Kmart and is on its way to be the top valued company in the world because it has the best information technology, turns over merchandise quickly and has chosen great store locations."

The memo failed to make clear how, precisely, the Wal-Mart model applies to a major metropolitan newspaper - but there was no mistaking the message behind Charan's warning that "real change cannot take place unless leaders are willing to take on sacred cows within that organization, and winnow out 'low-level C players' who distract management energy from pursuing top priorities." At a paper where the "gentleman's C" is at least as much of a tradition as it is at Harvard, such talk must have sounded revolutionary - and more than a little ominous.

But it wasn't all work and stress. During one afternoon, "the managers participated in an outdoor team building and problem-solving exercise run by Project Adventure, a North Shore-based consulting firm. Through various games and challenges, we were reminded of the need to expect change, adapt quickly, challenge rules, build on others' ideas, question assumptions and learn from our competitors." The participants were also treated to after-dinner speeches by columnists Brian McGrory and David Shribman that, according to the memo, were "funny, engaging and highly informative." What fun!

The memo closes by noting that publisher Richard Gilman "concluded the retreat by praising the participants for identifying five potential growth initiatives. He said next steps include putting together teams from around the newspaper to further develop promising ideas with an eye towards adopting one or more as key goals for next year."

So if you're a Globe employee and you're wondering why your manager screamed at you after getting back from Blantyre - well, now you know.

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Regardless of Brian Mooney's and Diane White's merits as columnists, you can't fault the Boston Globe's inclination to trim the number of people who write opinion pieces for the paper. It is a deep roster indeed, and sources say that both publisher Richard Gilman and editor Matt Storin have long talked about thinning the ranks. "We told all the columnists some time ago that they would all be evaluated from time to time and that no column was a lifetime appointment," says Storin, who noted that he was not talking specifically about Mooney and White. "In a very general way, I think you could probably make an argument that we have too many columnists."

The moves were described by Wednesday's Boston Herald as demotions, but I suppose it's all in the way you look at it. Mooney's column is a must-read for political junkies, but it was obviously underappreciated by his editors, stuck as it was on page three of the City/Region section. When the Big Dig cost-overrun story broke last spring, Mooney was pulled off his column-writing duties for several months and reassigned to the Spotlight Team. Mooney has always been a terrific reporter, and this could be a move for the better. White was in the near-impossible position of trying to write a humor column twice a week. After several decades, it's fair to say that the laughs didn't come as frequently as they used to.

Mooney and White, sources say, are less than thrilled about the moves, and you can't blame them. That's not to say Storin necessarily picked the right ones for reassignment, either. But the Globe has long been too column-heavy, and it's about time Storin did something about it.