This Frost Advisory is the first of two parts. Just trying to change things up.

There are two kinds of people in radio stations. Those that fear change, and those that thrive on it.

In my 40+ years in radio, no one has ever invited me in and said, “…but don’t change anything.” No air talent has ever been hired and told, “but don’t change anything the previous jock did.” Not changing is never the goal. But it’s often the outcome.

Those that fear change don’t realize a truth – that things are changing all the time, regardless of our efforts to not change.

My cousin Dan once told me, “If you want a white post to remain white, you have to paint it white again and again.” My cousin Dan says nifty stuff like that all the time, don’tcha know.

To keep your hair the same length you have to cut it.

To keep your kitchen the same, you have to wash the dishes and put them away.

To keep a calendar current, you have to tear off pages.

Every day the sun rises. Every evening the sun sets. And where I live on the globe that’s about four minutes different from the day before.

Lack of change is an illusion. Once you understand that even to stay the same you have to change, change changes from a threat to an opportunity.

On next week’s show I’ll delve into why change can seem so daunting and what we can do about it. And if you’ve already guessed that it has something to do with “National Cat Hair Day”, you may be right.

“You saved my life,” she said. I moved a little closer to hear.

I was eavesdropping on a conversation between my friend Tyler and a listener (hereafter referred to as a P1) who had heard Tyler share on the air about getting a mammogram. The listener, er-P1, was prompted to do likewise and discovered the early stage of breast cancer. Tyler had, in fact, played a role in saving her life.

That listener, er- P1, could have told Tyler that she really loved “This Day in History” at 7:35 every morning (“National Belly Button Lent Day”, dontcha know), or that she enjoyed the no-repeat workday marathon with no talk, or that she really enjoyed the talk over bed on the new weather jingle. But what this listener, er-P1, was reacting to was not some programming tactic (although there is nothing wrong with that to quote the great philosopher Seinfeld), but rather to Tyler sharing something meaningful and relevant to that listener’s life.

In our PPM navel-gazing we allow ourselves to be lured into assuming our listeners’ life choices are driven almost exclusively by what we do in our tiny 12 x 12 studio. We lose our perspective of listeners as real people, their humanness diminished to nothing more than a statistic. They become a P1; nothing more. Which reminds me of a recent grocery store run where I saw the stock boy so focused on loading shelves that he didn’t notice he was blocking people’s way. In other words, he was so busy with the task at hand that he lost perspective of why the customers were there in the first place.

How’s this for a humbling statistic?

Nielsen data indicates heavy radio listeners, er-P1s, only spend 6% of their waking time with their favorite station. Six percent, gulp. And those are the heavy listeners.

It is impossible to finagle your way into that 6% of waking hours by becoming less meaningful. The hand-wringing effort we make to strip down our radio stations in an effort to imprint one additional data point can only result in becoming what my friend Mark Ramsey refers to as “no one’s favorite I-Pod”.

Play lots of music? Of course! Be efficient with talk? Certainly! Discipline is imperative.

But consider this:

The impact of our format could be transformed if we paid more attention to being a part of saving lives than saving quarter hours.

I’ve met people who know how to do both!

Remember becoming a parent for the first time?  You likely reacted to everything your child did.  I remember standing over my daughter’s crib to make sure she was breathing.  Her baby book included the first everything, from baby shower to bath tub to bicycle.  By the time the second child comes along we’ve figured some things out.  We didn’t wake up at every sound. Some of the little things we fretted over with the first child didn’t seem quite as big a deal.

I’m the youngest of four kids.  By the time I came along my mom and dad had seen it all.  I don’t even have a baby book!

My travels take me into a variety of situations and personalities.  I work with some of the best of the best, and I’m also invited in to mentor those who are just beginning their journey.  I see the behavior of those who’ve been through it before and those who are facing a situation for the first time.

Experience gives us maturity.  Maturity develops perspective.  Perspective leads to wise decisions. 

A recent plane ride was unusually turbulent.  After several nasty bumps I turned to the young lady sitting next to me and asked if she was scared.  She just smiled at me and said,

“My dad is the pilot.  He does this all the time.”

What signals are we sending as leaders?   Do we react to every challenge as though it’s an unforeseen emergency, a time to panic, and a reason to “do SOMETHING” with READY-FIRE-AIM?  Or we do we respond with the experience and calm of a pilot who is trained at navigating the inevitable turbulence, who has been through it before, and who instills confidence to those entrusted to him?

Now don’t take this the wrong way.  I’m not against strong leadership.  I worked for Bud Paxson for many years, one of the most aggressive leaders I’ve ever seen.  But his actions were not RE-actions that sent the troops on an unpredictable tangent, they were pro-actions that motivated the team in a direction the team already understood.

Turbulence will come.  Your team is watching how you will lead.