Issue Date: July 13, 2008
Today co-hosts, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, on job challenges
Wake-up call: New job, new expectations, new hurdles. Workplace insights from morning TV's latest "dream team."
By Jack Curry
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We're pretty sure that -- unlike new "Today" co-hosts Kathie Lee Gifford, 54, and Hoda Kotb, 43 -- most of you are not TV personalities. However, you probably are just like them in another way: You get up each day and go to your job.
So that was the approach we took with these newly paired co-anchors of the venerable NBC program's fourth (yes, fourth!) hour. We talked to the duo about their new assignment in terms of challenges you meet every day: team building, compatibility, goal setting and even brand extensions.
Kathie Lee kept wanting to tell us how pretty Hoda's feet were. (For the record, she's a size 9 1/2, and they "are" shapely.) And we think Kathie Lee half-suspected that a question like "As the newcomer to the company, how will your skill set adapt to the demands of a new workplace?" was code for "What are you doing back on TV?"
The resulting interview is no case study you'd ever find in the "Harvard Business Review." Hoda, whose Myers-Briggs personality test score surely would place her solidly in the "Sensing/Thinking" categories, reflected long and hard when asked about a new job description requiring more personal revelation per day than had occurred during her 22-year career as a broadcast journalist. And Kathie Lee gleefully broke every HR rule in the book when she told our male reporter a story about the effect a cold swim has on a man. ("It's a true story," she insisted.)
Still, the exercise allowed two "staffers" to rethink their "Today" show gig in MBA, not NBC, terms and to talk about being TV stars in ways that shine light on the jobs we all do. Here are excerpts:
Kathie Lee, you're the newcomer to the team. Hoda, what did you tell her about her new workplace?
Kotb: Even though Kathie Lee is new to the team, she so much defined daytime TV to me that all I could think of when she was coming on was, "We're going to go down a different road." I thought, "Now we're going full steam."
How did you adapt your existing skill set to the requirements of the new job?
Kotb: I had done hard news for so many years, and I was so used to scripts and, you know, standing outside in Afghanistan or wherever with my cards, my yellow pad, all of it. There was a learning curve. To me, having cards is like the Linus blanket, and Kathie Lee goes, "Do it, do it" [throw them away]. And on the air, I remember that at that exact moment, I felt different.
Gifford: I don't even have the cards! And I got rid of the teleprompter stuff years ago.
Kathie Lee, how did you learn to adapt your particular skills and work ethic to this strong existing brand that is the "Today" show?
Gifford: I didn't want to single-handedly destroy the "Today" show! It wouldn't take me long to take 'em down, so I was trying to be extremely respectful of the "Today" brand. And at the same time, that fourth hour can be a little exhausted, by the time people have watched three hours of something. I was hired to be the Energizer Bunny. I also knew it couldn't be Regis and Kathie Lee. That would be completely unfair to Hoda.
But how did you gauge your compatibility?
Gifford: I wasn't looking to come back to TV. I was doing work that I adore, writing musicals and screenplays, and then Hoda and I had lunch. We laughed, we cried, I had a glass of wine or two, she had a glass of champagne, and I felt like this woman who I'd never known before was a cherished friend. I said if I'm going do it ... I've never done it with a woman before, so to speak [laughter] -- I'm no Angelina Jolie -- I just thought, go for it. I'm a big risk taker.
Kotb: When I went over to Kathie Lee's house, her husband, Frank, said, "Here's what's going to make this show work: You have to trust each other." I thought, I completely do trust her.
With two such different personalities, how do you manage to operate effectively -- and successfully?
Kotb: You have to acknowledge that you can't have two people driving the bus. I'm very comfortable with my role on the show. I think the way our personalities work together, it really does work.
Did you establish some sort of guidelines or a framework upfront?
Kotb: Kathie Lee asked me in the beginning, "If there are things you don't want to talk about, let me know."
Gifford: I said, "Anything you don't want to talk about, you tell me, and I'll take it to my grave." Same thing with Regis. I knew things that were really, really, very tender to him that I would never go there. That's why we're still friends 25 years later.
Can you name an example when one of you asked the other not to talk about something?
Gifford: My favorite dog is Regis, whom I've had for 13 years. Regis begged me to name the dog after him. But Hoda had a little different reaction. I adopted this gorgeous puppy, but Hoda did not want the dog to be named after her. So I just call her Hoda at home, not in public.
There are always challenges in the workplace. What are yours?
Gifford: Some days you just want to stay home and stay in your pajamas and drink your coffee.
Jack Curry is executive editor and vice president of USA WEEKEND.
Read Jack Curry's behind-the-scenes account of interviewing the Today co-hosts.
To answer the Today-USA WEEKEND Question of the week, go to todayshow.com. Watch Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford on Tuesday to hear the results. And check out the next three issues of USA WEEKEND for new questions!
Go to top
Secrets behind great teams
Three simple guidelines to make collaboration work
By Stephen R. Covey
Gifford and Kotb are teaming up to take on a high-profile, high-pressure project -- to make a success out of "Today's" fourth hour -- in a fiercely competitive environment. I'll bet that sounds familiar to most of you in today's workplace. You're constantly being assigned to a team that somehow needs to produce brilliance -- whether it's designing the next great product, assembling a great marketing plan or doubling company sales within the next 12 months.
No matter what workplace team you're on, you'll make a greater success of it by following these simple guidelines:
Establish your mission. Sounds like an obvious step, doesn't it? But you'd be surprised by how many times a new team will plow right into the work and assign tasks without ever making it clear from the beginning what the ultimate objective is. So establish the purpose. Get it in writing. And keep it in front of the team at all times so that everyone will stay focused.
Set the ground rules. Lay down the group's ground rules and values on Day One. Make it clear what kind of criticism of members' work is acceptable and what is considered destructive. Promote other key values, such as the integrity of the work that is produced by the group's members. Also, establish some working boundaries -- for example, one member may want to contact others 24/7 via BlackBerry, but others consider certain times of the day and night off limits. Now is the time to determine what's acceptable.
Identify each team member's strengths.
Early on, establish the individual strengths of each member. Everyone has weaknesses, but when members focus on complementary strengths, then weaknesses are minimized. Too often, a team member is reluctant to concede that another member's strength in a particular area is greater. But teams are successful only when those egos are checked at the door.
Contributing Editor Stephen R. Covey is the author of the best seller "The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness." For more information about Covey and the book, go to stephencovey.com.
Cover and cover story photographs by Joshua Kessler for USA WEEKEND
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