Writing recently in The New York Times business section, media columnist David Carr reviewed the successful career of Oprah Winfrey, who has announced that she’s ending her popular daytime talk show in 2011. While at first blush, Oprah may not have much in common with the typical association executive (among other things, Forbes has estimated her net worth at more than $2.3 billion), there are lessons from her 25-year run that all managers can apply to the way they run their organizations. In Carr’s column, most of these lessons take the form of the things Oprah did not do in order to become a success:

Oprah never put her name on merchandise or licensed her name to be used by others. As Carr points out, these are things that many of her contemporaries such as Martha Stewart, Donald Trump and a host of other would-be moguls have done with decidedly mixed results. Association executives are also often tempted to put their organization’s names on products that may not be central to their group’s membership value proposition. As Carr points out, Oprah made her brand stronger by refraining to have it plastered in all the obvious places.

Oprah never made deals just for the sake of synergy, never made investments that put a strain on her core business and never let office politics boil into public view. In this list, Carr includes those things that have undone media power players such as Barry Diller, Sumner Redstone and Michael Eisner. Here, the lesson of bringing a high level of discipline to the management of an organization is something that association executives can take from Oprah’s experience.

Oprah never got involved in businesses she didn’t understand and she never rose past her level of competence. In this instance, Carr draws a comparison between Oprah and Edgar Bronfman, Jean-Marie Messier and “just about everybody else in the media world” who have violated what should be basic tenets of organizational management. Recognizing and playing to your strengths is just as fundamental for an association executive as it has been for Oprah.

Oprah never felt constrained by conventional wisdom. Carr points out that Oprah turned down numerous movie roles following her debut in “The Color Purple” because she “knew her talk show was the thing that would butter her bread.” Carr also points out that as tabloid television gained popularity, Oprah moved in the opposite direction and built an even bigger audience by promoting good books and providing an uplifting experience. In this instance, managers who think they can only move their organizations in directions that others expect should consider what might be accomplished if conventional wisdom is turned on its head.

Of course, while Oprah is ending her talk show while it’s still on top, she won’t exactly be fading from the media landscape. She has spawned several other talk shows now in syndication and she will launch her own cable channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network, in 2011. In concluding his column, Carr quotes Oprah as saying, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds it.”

On behalf of all of the people at Association News, best wishes for the holiday season. Here’s wishing you all the success you envision for yourself in 2010!

Tim Schneider
Schneider Publishing Company