This week’s action: Take time to get on the balcony.
News organizations don’t transform just by adopting new strategies, products and technology. They transform when they gain the capacity to work differently. Can we see what’s changing? Can we develop new capabilities and capacities, while strategically stopping old ones, to respond better to change? Can we meaningfully influence what comes next?
Healthy, people-first organizations don’t shield their people from the discomfort or uncertainty of change. Instead, they create the conditions that make change easier to understand and believe in, embrace and participate in.
Through our People & Culture work, the American Press Institute has helped news leaders build and protect these conditions: creating space and time to see and test assumptions, building capacity across the organization to solve problems in new ways, and making learning part of organizational culture. Here’s what that work looks like:
- See your challenges differently: It’s “from the balcony” — above the daily tasks and responsibilities on the “dance floor”— that news leaders can see challenges more clearly and differently. For example, The Houston Chronicle set aside time from day-to-day operations to test the assumption that local journalists can partner equitably with local food content creators while participating in API’s Influencer Learning Cohort in 2025. Team members were able to notice emerging opportunities, identify bottlenecks in their processes, question their assumptions and adapt their workflow for such collaborations.
- Build capacity: News leaders are often quite clear on what they want to do differently, but they may not have the people, processes and shared knowledge to do the work repeatedly. Boise State Public Radio was a participant in the Table Stakes Live Event Sprint in 2024, and through launching an event series, the team gained new capabilities, established cross-departmental responsibilities, built processes and turned an experiment into a repeatable organizational strategy.
- Make learning part of your culture: Learning shouldn’t be limited to a brown bag session or one-time workshop. For example, Knox News used an API learning cohort experience and grant to take field trips to better understand other parts of the organization and the community, adapt their all-staff meetings to include learning opportunities, create Beat 101 guides and tweak their onboarding process for new team members.
Navigating change is more than picking the right strategy or tool. It requires questioning assumptions, developing new skills and continuously teaching and learning. This week, start by taking time to step away from the daily demands of leadership and see a challenge differently.
Try this
Start here: Pick a challenge you’ve been working on where you feel stuck, and block 30 minutes on your calendar for balcony time, when you’ll set aside immediate demands to see things you miss when you’re immersed in the work.
Take action: In your 30 minutes:
- Take five minutes to clear your mind of your daily tasks. This could look like writing a to-do list to return to later or just writing out all of the things getting in your way today. Then set that list physically aside. Be sure to also silence any email and messaging notifications.
- Now, take 20 minutes to think about this challenge from above, on “the balcony,” rather than from the busy “dance floor” of your day-to-day work. Consider: What patterns or assumptions am I missing because I’m too close to the problem? How might our existing roles, workflows or culture be contributing to this challenge? Whose perspectives am I missing?
- Use your last five minutes to identify one assumption to test and one person to bring onto the balcony with you.
Reflect: What has your understanding of the challenge changed after stepping away from the day-to-day demands? What might you approach differently now?
Dig deeper
- Transforming local journalism requires transforming how we work
- Mental health reset
- API’s digital transformation guide: Managing people through change
- 8 ways to build staff engagement in your news organization
- API’s guide to influencer collaborations
We know the most valuable insights often live in people’s experiences and relationships. Tell us about an API gathering, idea, person or experience that shaped how you led or thought about your work. Share your story.
