When the Going Gets Tough

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Authors: Pradip Sinha, Sadhu Ramakrishna,
Associate Consultant, Research Associate
ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research).

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The number 26 million is so big that others can easily get envy of her popularity. It's a delight to watch Oprah on her show. She just says with her heart, and she thrills the audience with her warmth and charismatic personality. She always believes in change. It is one of the vital features of the great entrepreneurs that they keep on changing with time. As change is the essence of life and is inevitable, you cannot ignore it. Despite her impoverished and troubled childhood, she became familiar with millions of viewers all over the world. This is just incredible.

She joined her first broadcasting job as a part- time radio announcer at age 17, an age when most of the people concentrate on their studies thinking about their future. She moved on further to do some reporting and anchoring job here and there. In the year 1984, she joined the WLS-TV Chicago, a TV talk show, which later became her identity as the show time was increased from 30 minutes to one hour and the show was renamed as the Oprah Winfrey show, because of the growing popularity of Oprah among the millions who watched her, especially among the women belonging to the age group of 30-50 years.

It took no time for the show to go national and become the number one talk-show of the country. What made all this quick success possible? It was not a miracle, but it was simply because of Oprah's sweet, friendly and energetic conversational tone which was added by her sheer hard work and her innovative style of handling the talk-show. She also tried her luck of becoming an actress by playing a role in a Steven Spielberg film. Not only was she nominated for the prestigious Oscar and Golden globe awards for the best actress category, she even got accolades from many critics. She even went a step forward in establishing the Harpo Productions Inc, and by doing that she also became only the third women in the US history to own a movie production studio, which in itself is a matter of pride. Later, she also became the first ever women in history of television to own and produce her own talk-show by acquiring the ownership and production rights of the "Oprah Winfrey show" from American Broadcasting Corporation. All these do reflect her skills, versatility and her passion towards her work.

Leaders need to change themselves and their style, depending on the situation and the market trends. She also changed according to the time by changing the focus of her talk- show after a decade of nonstop success from dysfunctional families and their problems to a positive show _ that inspires people to rise above and achieve their dreams. This change promised to help change lives for the better, and that too being the motto of her entire life to have a better place to live in. It was a huge success. She went on expanding her business into various fields such as publishing, music, film, health and fitness and education.

Oprah even ousted names like Steven Spielberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michel Jackson and other huge celebrities from the Forbes list of 'Highest Paid Entertainers'. She got immense success for her O magazine, which was considered a reflection of her life. But as the old saying goes, "old is gold". This applies for Oprah also, as despite her success in different fields, her 'Oprah Winfrey show' still continues to be the number one talk-show on television, being aired in 107 countries and being the number one show for a record 16 continuous years. It simply speaks of Oprah's huge popularity and fan following all over the world crossing all boundaries and barriers. The key factor, which played a major role in her popularity, is her ability to empathize and communicate intimately with her audience and her strong will power in sharing her personal life experiences on the talk show, which many would consider uncomfortable.

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