The start of a new year is a great time to prioritize the things that make the biggest impact on your station’s growth and success.  Major in the majors, as they say.  The more advanced your station the more you can go beyond the basics to the more complicated concepts such a developing a meaningful brand and connecting emotionally.

But at its core programming is a relatively simple process.  Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi put such emphasis on the basics that he is famous for starting every training camp with these five words,

In my other life I do some baseball announcing for spring training in Florida.  It is there that I see practice drills that resemble more little league than big league.  Many times during the regular season a critical moment in a game will come down to “something they practice every day in spring training.”

Someone said “Spring training is like the movie Groundhog Day … you keep doing it until you get it right … then you do it again.”

Just as with sports, radio programming has its basics.   They are:

1. Play the music your listeners love.
2. Talk about things they are interested in.
3. Don’t waste their time.

I can tune to an under-performing radio station and within thirty minutes I’ll hear at least one of these basics executed poorly or not at all.

But that’s the past.  Now it’s a new year and we have a clean slate.  What’s say we start the year by getting these three things right, then we can go to work on the more complicated stuff!

You probably work with them every day. People who live in the past. Fearful of change.

Their fossilized mantra is, “We’ve never done it that way.”  Their reaction to innovative programming ideas is, “That doesn’t sound like us.”

That’s driving while looking in the rear view mirror stuff, don’tcha know.

That observation probably doesn’t surprise you.  But this one may.

It’s the cry of the pessimist.

In essence they are saying what has happened in the past is better than what could happen in the future.

“Optimism is the ability to focus on where we are going, not where we are coming from.  Leaders own the optimism. Leaders inspire us ahead.”
~Simon Sinek

A decade ago our home sustained some minor hurricane damage that prompted some remodeling.  Despite the sawdust and scaffolding, despite the inconvenience of not being able to access the kitchen and a bathroom for a time, the architect kept reminding us to how beautiful things would look when the construction was done.

“There is an inexorable link between an organization’s vision and it’s appetite for improvement.”
~Andy Stanley

To find the real leaders in your organization, regardless of titles, look for the optimists.  They are the ones who believe in the future.

In case you’re not sure what kind of year you’ve had, the mad scientists at Facebook are stepping up to help with an unsolicited montage of photos from one’s own Facebook posts.  My Year in Review highlights include a photo of me with a tree, me with a dog, and me with a 25-foot-tall Texas flag.

After peaking at a few others I’m glad they’ve left out political rants, photos of food, and close-ups of injured body parts (i.e., mostly what’s really on Facebook posts).

The most frequent comments to Year in Review tend to be, or “We had fun doing that!”, or “Where is the photo of me?”  In other words, people reacted based upon their own connection to the post (or lack of).

ATTENTION is driven by RELEVANCE.  And RELEVANCE is the basis for connection.

“People will be more interested in your home movies if they are in them.”
~Roy Williams

What photos would be on your station’s Year in Review?  And would your listeners care?

All ideas start in the left brain.  That’s where reading and writing, calculation, and logical thinking hang out.

In our radio stations many ideas and conversations stop there, never crossing over to the right brain, where dimensions, creativity, and emotion are interpreted.  We talk about the music as though we’re doing inventory.  (“We have 12 of the red ones and 40 of the blue ones”), we talk about “shifts” instead of “shows”, and discuss promotions like we’re using the Associated Press style book of Who, What, When, and Where.

Staying in the left brain is how we end up with dry-as-sandpaper promotions like Clergy Appreciation Month, Local Music Project, and my all-time “favorite” the Bereavement Conference 2016.

If you’ve ever talked on the air about a Family 4-Pack of tickets, a gift card, or told listeners to “enroll/register/download”, you’ve stopped short of taking the idea over to the emotional right side of the brain.

You may have the ‘what’ but you don’t have the ‘why’.

The goal is to make people care.

“Feelings inspire people to act.  For people to take action, they have to care.”
~Chip and Dan Heath “Made to Stick“

There is no idea so brilliant that it can’t be made utterly ineffective through the presentation of left-brained information.

Yes, all ideas start in the left brain, but that doesn’t mean they have to stop there.

As we turn the page on another Thanksgiving holiday in America, the front page tells us that Fidel Castro has died.  That’s reason for partying in the streets in the Cuban-American communities.  One news account referred to it as “Christmas coming early.”

I wonder if Fidel Castro was a grateful man.  Curious idea, don’tcha think?

We don’t usually associate dictators with gratitude.  No, they are the quintessential takers.  The news stories used words like oppression, control, and force.  And yet we associate being grateful with giving.

The same is true for our radio stations.

Is your station a giver or a taker?

I know radio stations where the only time one hears certain voices is when they are asking for money.  Their airwaves are filled with commands “do this” and “do that”, treating listeners like the proverbial dog on a leash.

But I know stations that are “givers”.  I know of a station that has a strategic initiative to connect listeners to local charities.  I know of a station that was on the ground offering bottled water and other help during a local disaster.  I know of a station that gives the opportunity to pray with listeners in need at each station event.

“The human spirit senses and feeds on a giving spirit… Think about what Jesus taught – half the time people didn’t know what he was talking about, but they listened attentively.  Jesus was giving – feeding them.  Not taking.  It is at a spirit (heart) level – he wasn’t just giving information.”
~John Maxwell

One of my heroes is a fellow by the name of Billy Howell, who runs an automobile dealership in the Atlanta area.  Although we’ve never met Billy is one of my heroes because he is a giver.  He partners each year with my friends at The Fish Atlanta to bless those who are struggling.  Just last week Billy and his company granted a Christmas Wish to fly a soldier and his family home to Atlanta prior to his deployment to Afghanistan.

“The best ministry we can offer on God’s behalf isn’t to explain our theology.  It’s to extend our generosity.  Because that’s what our heavenly Father did for us.  And that’s what he’s asked us to do as well.”
~Andy Stanley

Oh, and by the way, the stories of giving you share make wonderful gifts for your listeners

That’s the announcement that came over the airport PA.  But the announcement seems self-evident, doesn’t it?

Atlanta is in the eastern time zone.

Unless…

…you’re not from Atlanta.

And most of the 250,000 travelers per day through the world’s busiest airport are NOT from Atlanta.

Almost everyone has to catch another flight.  So time matters.

The seemingly self-evident becomes vital with a simple change of perspective.

Your listener has a perspective. Great stations learn it.

“Did you call out my daughter’s name?  A friend told me to call.  I’ve never listened to your station before.”

I’m told there is a newspaper with a remarkable circulation rate – 100%.  Yep!  Everyone in town reads it.  The country wisdom of the publisher describes it in three words:

Names, Names, Names

He says that every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and every Donald and Hillary read his newspaper because they want to see if their name was in it. (“Made to Stick”, by Chip and Dean Heath)

What if your station was littered with the names and voices of your listeners?  A community of sounds, maybe introducing traffic, weather, birthdays, anniversaries, or lost dogs, and ultimately creating word-of-mouth.

What if the very design of your station revealed your listeners?

The power of a name was evident in social media when Starbucks recently offered a $5 eGift card to those who would “@tweetacoffee to” the Twitter handle of a friend.  “This can be between the closest of friends, the most distant of colleagues, or even between people who have not even had the chance to meet yet in person, but have connected in some way on Twitter.  We love the possibilities that the Twitter community can unlock to share acts of kindness with one another.”

What if…

…in a world of cookie cutter formats programmed remotely by people who couldn’t even locate your city on a map, the most effective viral marketing tool was simply the power of a name.

Interesting, isn’t it?

Five million fans lined the streets of Chicago to celebrate the Cubs’ World Series championship!  That’s almost double the number that actually attended a Cubs’ game at Wrigley Field this season.  What’s that about?

It seems that the idea of being a Cubs’ fan actually transcends being a Cubs’ fan.

“When you have a story that’s larger and more interesting than your product or service – or you – other people and companies will want to incorporate your story into theirs to share the halo effect.  Supporters beat customers every time.  But gaining supporters starts with having a story worth supporting.”
~Blake Mycoskie, “Start Something that Matters”

Too often, however, our radio stations are more like versions of the game day accounts that dissect OPS (on base plus slugging percentage), WAR (wins above replacement), and BAFM (batting average during a full moon).

But that is not what motivated 5 million to line the streets of Chicago to honor their Cubbies!

On the brick wall at Wrigley Field fans wrote tributes to family members that didn’t live to see the Cubs win the World Series.

“My grandpa was a Cubs’ fan, my dad was too, and me and my brother…”

Last I checked no one wrote anything on that wall about Dexter Fowler’s stolen base percentage, Jon Lester’s strikeout to walk ratio, or Aroldis Chapman’s velocity.

Why then do we insist on diminishing our stations to nothing more than a Christian music version of Spotify, stripping our stations of the very values worthy of creating five millions fans willing to line the streets of Chicago?  My friend Mike looks out his office window to bemoan a parking lot void of any car with a station bumper sticker.  I regularly walk through stations where I hear no employee, supposedly the most passionate of fans, actually listening to the station.

Here’s my challenge to you…

Listen to your station for the next thirty minutes.

What do you hear that transcends batting average and on base percentage?

What do you hear that is a mirror reflecting back the very identity of your listener?

What do you hear that could motivate millions to line the streets and write tributes in chalk to the ones they love?

It’s baseball’s biggest stage.  These games mean it all.  The dream of every kid who’s ever hit a baseball in his back yard.  And yet, at this penultimate moment in a millionaire player’s career they are willing to stop the game.  And hold a cheap handwritten cardboard sign.

What’s going on here?

“Major League Baseball, Stand Up To Cancer and MasterCard conducted a special in-game moment, with players, umpires, coaches and fans all pausing to hold up placards with the names of loved ones affected by cancer.”
~MLB.com

If we view it through the filter of what is has to do with baseball it makes absolutely no sense.  But if we view it through the filter of who were are as a community – as a family, we see that it is more important than just a game.

This campaign’s viral marketing taps into beliefs and values that just so happens to be at the heart of your radio station: celebrating family and friends, and reaching out to help others.  Beliefs and Values is not about sounding religious, it’s about connecting to things that really matter.

While the other radio stations are talking about what matters to them, maybe we can be talking about what matters to our listeners.

“There’s singing at people,
There’s singing to people,

There’s singing about how you feel…
Then, there’s singing about how THEY feel”
~Tim McGraw

This week’s Frost Advisory is authored by my colleague T.J. Holland, a very smart fellow indeed.

“When nobody is effectively ‘in charge’, you’re bound to get more people arguing over how things should be done.”
~Dean Burnett PhD.

You may have come to expect (and accept) that every election cycle will bring more and more mudslinging.  Yet this cycle, it seems the slung mud is inside the parties nearly as much as at the opposition party.  This sort of circular firing squad mentality is becoming part of the process as well.  Almost everyday there is a series of leaked documents that expose the internal espionage inside the parties.

Thankfully, WikiLeaks hasn’t released private messages within our own organizations.

Does your workplace suffer from your own form of infighting?  This is more than a programming versus sales discussion.

It’s about separate camps forming within because of lack of vision and leaders that unite.

Infighting is part of a larger type of group psychology.  Dean Burnett commented on political infighting in his recent article in The Guardian, “Why Political Parties Fall Apart:  the Psychology of Infighting.”

Are the current crop of politicians sufficiently capable “leaders”? A reliance on presentation and spin may mean they have an easier ride from most voters, but these qualities don’t automatically make you a strong leader.  In times of uncertainty (which seems to be 24/7 at the moment) a strong leader is very important for group unity.

It’s not surprising that curbing disunity comes down to leadership that is engaged.

How often do we spin poor ratings or a lackluster fundraising effort with spin instead of addressing the underlying issues behind the results?   The conversations after the explanation usually aren’t about how everyone bought into it.

Do we accept the results of a poor internal employee survey as a need for more self-awareness and change, or do simply send out a memo to the team letting them know “they’ve been heard” (or worse, conducting a “witch hunt” to find the dissenters)?  Does this lack of directness bring unity or division from those who are targeted?

After hearing breaks that consistently miss the opportunity to connect emotionally, do we take the time to coach up talent or do we shoulder shrug and complain about not having enough hours in a day to get the job done?  Your talent ends up alienated and silos are built.  It’s better to catch them doing something right and point that out.  That’s an easy first step.

It’s so easy to throw the word around, yet it’s really a challenge to a lead.  Be in charge, as your strong leadership will be the difference between a united workplace, or overseeing a group even Julian Assange would shake his head at.