This Week in Backstory & Strategy (and a Big Milestone Ahead)

Five stories on leadership, creativity, and building better newsrooms—plus a look ahead to post #100.

A Saturday morning desk setup: notebook open, checklist started, coffee at hand—ready to reflect on the week. (AI-generated image).

It’s Saturday, which means it’s time for another Backstory & Strategy week-in-review. Slip on your slippers, pour your favorite drink, and catch up on what you may have missed:

• Goal-Setting: A Destination Without a Map
  Why organizations get goal-setting wrong—and how to make sure your goals connect to the bigger picture instead of becoming empty checkboxes.

• The Know-It-All vs. The Knows-Nothing
  A look at two very different leadership styles, and why the one who admits what they don’t know often earns more trust than the one who pretends to know it all.

• A Newsroom for Cheltenham: How We Built It
  Pulling back the curtain on how a local newsroom came together—from community need to strategy to execution—and what it says about building journalism for place.

• When Creativity Left the Building
  Remote work didn’t kill productivity, but it made innovation harder. Here’s why—and how leaders can bring back the spark.

• Leadership Changes Are Like Moving Houses
  What it feels like to live with the leftovers of leadership transitions—and how employees can help new leaders sort out what stays and what goes.

Not a bad week, if I say so myself. I work hard to make sure every piece offers practical strategies, not just opinions—and I hope you’ve found them useful.

Next week is a big one: Backstory & Strategy will hit its 100th post since launching on May 15. We’re also just 11 subscribers shy of 100. Hitting 100/100 would be a pretty great way to mark the milestone. If you know someone who’d benefit from this newsletter, now’s the perfect time to share it.

Thanks, as always, for your support and encouragement. Keep the comments, questions, and suggestions coming. Enjoy the weekend—and I’ll see you Monday as we head into milestone week.

- Yoni

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