Public Media Leadership
Jan 16, 2024
Did you know, there are 1440 minutes in a day? Our daily task is to decide how we will use them. It’s an exercise in both discipline and intention.
I’d not considered this unit of time until I was preparing for the True North Leadership course I took in mid-November, offered by 1440 Multiversity in Central California. It’s a program developed by former Medtronic CEO Bill George and employs content from his Authentic Leadership class at Harvard Business School.
The course brought together about 60 mid-career leaders from across the country to explore the ways we lead—our strengths, our challenges, our blind spots, and our true north purpose. It encouraged each of us to understand better the experiences that have shaped us, the ways we show up as leaders, what to lean into, and what to tighten up. Most importantly for me, it was an opportunity to focus on the impact I want to make through my role here with MPR.
I come to this work with a mindset toward lifelong learning and growth. My personal mission statement, which I developed in the fall of 2020 shortly after coming to MPR, makes clear why I pursued this opportunity. It reads: I am committed to MPR creating a more informed, connected, and compassionate workplace and world. The True North course gave me a structured way to stop and think deeply about what I have to offer, ways to serve and lead as my best self, and to set a direction for the year. It made me consider the best use of my 1440 minutes and ways to focus on what is mine to do, and what can be done best by others, so each person can apply their strengths and gifts to the tasks while knowing others will use theirs.
One thing that surfaced during the course is the importance of high alignment. We examined if and how we are individually aligned with the mission and strategic goals of our organizations. And by extension, we considered whether our teams are equipped to align their work to our ambitions? Our job is to ask, are we as a whole team aligned to fulfill the vision, mission, and goals we’ve established with the assistance of the board of trustees? The more aligned we are, the more effectively we will use our time and resources to serve our community and amplify voices to inform, include, and inspire.
This year will be a pivotal one. Under the leadership of Jean Taylor, American Public Media Group’s CEO, we’ve refined our vision, mission, and goals. Our entire organization is working to flesh out the details of our new strategic plan, which will require a new level of collaboration across brands, divisions, and geographies.
While I’m responsible for contributing to all of our strategic pillars, I’m intricately tied to one we’ve dubbed Local Focus First. It’s critical work happening at a regional and national level. MPR’s regional brands -- MPR News, The Current and YourClassical MPR – are committed to serving more Minnesotans in the years ahead. And our national brands, including Marketplace, are also working to build deeper connections at a local level, through their storytelling and events. Our news and music services are gearing up to be a bigger part of life in greater Minnesota. It means building a backbone to offer a stable structure for a whole news ecosystem. One that allows media outlets across the state to take advantage of what we are producing; it also means they can contribute to the ecosystem in ways that improve the odds that wherever you are in Minnesota, you have access to reliable, relevant news and information. Next month I will share an update from my visits to our greater Minnesota bureaus. Their work will be essential to our efforts to be a media organization whose public service mirrors the communities where we live and serve.
As we focus on community-centered news and music, we will continue to advance partnerships that draw us closer to the public and strengthen us in ways we simply could not do alone. For example, last month in an in-depth conversation we hosted with three key news partners, we dug into what it is we can do better together. MPR News, Sahan Journal, the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, and the Star Tribune all see our work as infrastructure contributing to the news ecosystem throughout the state of Minnesota. We’re planning a similar event with partners in greater Minnesota. Like bridges and roads, our work connects our whole state. We share a belief that our most precious resource is trust: that trust is earned by keeping our news standards, ethics and values top of mind. We work to earn your trust every day.
Our pledge to you as we do our daily 1440 minutes is to tune our focus on doing our best, on making wise use of the generous resources we receive through your investments in us. Trust is currency. Alignment keeps us on track. And we will continue to work to be leaders in public media, to build understanding with one another in our complex world.
Thank you for being part of our work. We are stronger together.
Duchesne Drew
President, Minnesota Public Radio
About Duchesne Drew
Duchesne Drew is Senior Vice President of American Public Media Group and President of Minnesota Public Radio. In this role, he leads the teams that produce MPR News, The Current, APM Reports and Marketplace. Additionally, he oversees YourClassical MPR as a part of Minnesota Public Radio.