New thinking and behaviour

Thomson Reuters neither inspires employees, delights customers nor grows revenues [TR staff need new thinking and behaviour - CEO].

Under the leadership of the Thomson family and James Smith it has singularly failed to grow and prosper. Instead, the company (read staff) has had to endure endless rounds of restructuring, periodic bouts of redundancies and baffling missives from top management demanding everyone change with the times, without really spelling out what was needed or detailing a coherent vision of the new future.

Smith’s note to staff calling for new thinking and behaviour to achieve a unified enterprise just doesn’t cut it. He is paid millions of dollars a year to be the visionary for Thomson Reuters. What he has laid out is a poor man’s version of the Trust Principles that have guided the company well over the years. His re-invention shows complete lack of imagination and raises questions about his respect for the company’s heritage. A two-year-old could have crafted his note on “Trust, Partnership, Innovation and Performance”.

If Smith and the Thomson family were truly determined to restore the great Reuters name and add value to its brand, it would start investing in competitive IT (internally and externally), build competent sales, marketing and customer service teams (if Bloomberg can do it, so can Reuters) and stop the haemorrhaging of editorial talent. This is what competitive companies do when things get tough. You fight back. Reuters is just whimpering and heading for the corner.

Without fast, accurate and unique news, Reuters is doomed. It has lost so many excellent journalists, particularly those with deep, institutional knowledge of the company and their fields of expertise. All this has happened under Smith’s leadership.

Don’t ask staff to embrace new thinking or some sort of new vision unless you can clearly articulate exactly what that is and lead the company back to its position as the pre-eminent provider of trusted news and information. Only then will the Thomson family truly unlock the value of the Reuters asset. ■