The Art of Smart

Peter Jablow

Senior VP and COO
National Public Radio
Washington, DC

To learn anything, you have to question everything. For years, NPR functioned like a government agency, and, in 1983, it almost went bankrupt. Back then, leadership needed to drop anchor and to patch up all the holes. But over the past several years, we've started pulling up the anchors that have kept us from getting anywhere.

We've needed to start questioning what we do and how we do it: Why are we still distributing a certain program? Who's our audience? Why do we produce this program that way? All that might sound like a no-brainer; but for a business that often functions like an insular government agency, this is hard-core learning. We've also found that asking tons of questions leads us to an evolving set of answers.

For instance, one of our most popular news shows is "All Things Considered." The show used to start on the East Coast at 5 p.m. and end at 6:30 p.m. Then several stations asked a simple question: Why not start the show at 4 p.m.? Because, they argued, that's when drive time begins on the East Coast -- and when listeners would tune in to hear the show. Altering the starting time of the show may sound like a minor change. But it had huge implications for the structure and processes that had been in place.

So, in our usual way, we hemmed and hawed about the issue. Some argued that, as a nonprofit company, we didn't have a heap of capital to invest in change. We had developed a mind-set of waiting -- waiting for somebody to write us a check before we made a move. Finally, we told everyone to just do it: Plan for the change by a certain date, and we would make sure that the resources were in place. The process of unlearning traditional ways of approaching and solving problems takes time -- and it's hard. I've lost a lot of hair over this. In fact, when I started this job I had a full head of hair, and now I'm going bald. Go figure.

Peter Jablow (pjablow@npr.org) joined NPR, a nonprofit radio network, in 1995. NPR has nearly 600 member stations and can be heard in all 50 states as well as in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. From 1989 to 1991, Jablow was CEO of Ticketron.

Eric Hippeau

Chairman and CEO
Ziff-Davis Inc.
New York, New York

No school can teach you how to do business in today's world. Instead, companies have to rely on their own internal-learning practices to succeed. Everyone is capable of reinventing themselves and their businesses. And the one thing that people really want to be assured of is that it's all right to spend time thinking crazy thoughts -- and that those thoughts will be taken seriously by their companies. Create this environment, and watch where imagination can lead you.

With such diverse media, our advertisers have changed what they want from us over the past year -- which has forced our corporate sales team through some radical renovation. The sales group realized that, because of their traditional ways of operating, they were missing opportunities. So they started creating ad-hoc marketing teams that formed and dissolved around specific issues or opportunities.

We now call that method the "sales 360 approach." Everyone has at least two jobs: managing standard-issue accounts, and being ready to jump on an opportunity with people from various parts of the company. We're careful not to codify any of this. Basically, if you give people the space and the support to learn and to change, they will.

Eric Hippeau joined Ziff-Davis as the publisher of PC Magazine in 1989. Since then, he has built the Internet-media company into a powerhouse that includes the popular Web site ZDNet, as well as more than 100 magazine titles worldwide, an online university, and, most recently, Comdex, the leading computer trade show.

Philip Bigler

1998 National Teacher of the Year
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
Fairfax County, Virginia

You can't be an effective teacher unless you're a constant learner. One thing that was the most difficult for me to unlearn was how to teach. Teachers are no longer the sage on the stage, imparting knowledge to a group of passive kids. To be effective now, I don't have to be "the authority." Rather, I need to let kids explore learning themselves. I might see a quicker way of getting from point A to point B, but the knowledge that kids gain is fundamentally richer when they get there on their own.

I used to try to control my students' learning by insisting on certain processes. For instance, I would require students to show me note cards on their research papers. It was how I checked up on their work -- and how I made sure that they were doing it my way. Then, one day, a group of students refused to do it my way; it just wasn't how they did things. I had failed to understand those kids' natural motivation and creativity. Now I can accept and appreciate that students' products are their answers, not their processes.

Philip Bigler (philipb445@aol.com) teaches history and humanities at Thomas Jefferson High, a magnet school for science and technology. Bigler began teaching more than 20 years ago. He has also served as historian for Arlington National Cemetery, and he has written four books, including "Hostile Fire: The Life and Death of First Lieutenant Sharon Lane" (Vandamere Press, 1996).