Centerpieces

OK, it wasn't really a test -- more like a private personality inventory. And I'm not sure you can "flunk" personality (although I've met people who seem to lack one).

But part of my personality is to over-achieve. So when this inventory highlighted areas where I’m not naturally gifted, it felt a lot like the day in third grade when my report card showed an Unsatisfactory in Conduct. (A hint that perhaps I had too much personality, at least for the good nuns at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Elementary School.)

What does this have to do with journalism?

Bear with me for a little background:

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A group of us had gathered at The Poynter Institute to road test a job-fit inventory that would become one of two new News University courses for newsroom assigning editors, and the foundation of the Frontline Editors Project that we're announcing this week. (More on that below.) Some of us had advanced into senior jobs in our newsrooms or had since left the newsroom to teach or consult. Some were still working as frontline assigning editors.

I've told the story many times. I came to editing reluctantly. I had been reporting for 20 years, and was loath to leave the streets or my byline. And I had been told over the years that I'd never make an editor. Among my sins: Too temperamental, too disdainful of administrative tasks, skeptical of authority. (I guess the good nuns were right.)

When I finally was lured to the Metro desk as a projects editor, it was because a confident boss liked what I had to offer -- journalistic chops -- and trusted I would learn the rest.

Learn I did. Not overnight. Not everything equally well. But with surprising joy, and a huge debt to the patient reporters who put up with my on-the-job education.

So imagine my horror when, after a decade of success on the job, I "flunked" portions of the job-fit test, which compared my natural style to 22 style traits deemed key to being an effective frontline editor. I landed slightly out of "ideal range”"on a few of the traits. And I totally tanked on the most essential: Persuasive.

I gulped and showed it to Michele McLellan, one of my partners in the Frontline Editors Project and a longtime friend. She hooted and then reminded me of the first time we met in a training workshop for editors at The (Portland) Oregonian. We were partnered in a team-building exercise that required us to solve a trick math question. She quickly divined the right answer. I quickly talked her out of it – and sold her on the wrong answer.

So, persuasive? You bet I am. But when I took the job-fit assessment, I cringed every time I answered a question that included the word "sell."

And truth is, I'd rather eat hot rocks than work in retail. But what I've learned – learned – is to sell what I care about, which are stories. I've sold story assignments to reporters, convinced senior editors to back a risky idea, bought time and space for the right projects. It wasn’t much different than learning, as a writer, how to write an effective nut graf so my stories would make sense to readers.

Michele knew that about me. She reminded me that the job-fit inventory is not a score of abilities but a mirror of individual preferences or styles. Once you look in that mirror, you can take honest stock of what you naturally do well -- and what you need to work at.

So I relaxed, reviewed my non-test test scores and considered what I might want to work on learning next. Ack! Administrative tasks.

We invite you to do the same.

News University is introducing two new online courses designed for frontline editors -- those hard-working professionals who assign and edit content and work side-by-side with reporters, photographers and graphic artists. The courses assess how well an individual's personality or natural behavioral style matches the demands of a frontline editor's job.

"Frontline Editors Introduction: Understanding Leadership Styles" is free; it presents various newsroom situations and asks how you would most naturally respond. A companion course -- "Frontline Editors, Personal Edition: Job Aptitude and Analysis" -- costs $125. Having flunked it myself, I know it's worth the investment: It provides a sophisticated inventory of your individual behavioral style, offers tailored feedback about how that style might help or hinder you on the job, then suggests an array of training to help you grow as a leader and manager.

The courses and a new Web site mark the launch of the Frontline Editors Project, which hopes to become a virtual homeroom for newsroom frontliners, providing support, training, connections and shared wisdom.

There will be more to come as the Frontlines Editors Project takes off. We hope to keep up with all the changes and new demands you encounter each day in a conflicted industry. We want to find ways to help you improve your leadership and your journalism. But this is a good start. The project may have, for the first time, articulated the make-or-break role a frontline editor plays in a newsroom.

And it may help you find ways to turn your behavioral sins into learned strengths. The good nuns would approve.