“When you exert the leadership, people tend to personalize the mission. Rather than being an initiative to transform into the digital media, it becomes, ‘Well, it’s Peter’s thing. Peter’s going too fast.’”
“In our industry right now, you cannot move too fast. You’ve got to take some risks and you’ve got to test some outcomes. You can’t just sit and wait for somebody else to do it.”
“So I think the greatest frustration is people hearing, ‘Well, this is Peter’s thing about Spanish television.’ This is Peter’s thing about the digital media. This is Peter’s thing about student television.’“
“Peter as a CEO, like Jeff Immelt is a CEO, can have wonderful ideas, but if his board and his management don’t support them, he’s not allowed to do them. So anything I have done or proposed is a result of our having gone to our executives and my board and getting them to authorize an initiative and back me up.”
“So while it would be nice to think you could go off on your own and simply quixotically chase the Grail, organizations don’t work like that, especially in a nonprofit. Somebody has to say, ‘All right, we authorize you to take that action. We will support you and fund you.’”