Dear Colleagues,
At Radiotelevision Slovenia, we have two significant holidays: RTV Day, celebrated on 28 October, and perhaps an even more important occasion—the day we recognize outstanding work achievements. Dear awardees, we have gathered here today to express our gratitude for your contributions to our community. Your work demonstrates professional dedication and enhances the reputation of our company. We are pleased to have the opportunity to acknowledge the quality work within our team because the recognition of professional colleagues can often mean more than public approval. We are also grateful to the management for supporting the realization of today’s celebration. Reflecting on past achievements also helps illuminate the future path of our organization. At the beginning of this year, RTV found itself on the brink of a financial crisis. Since then, we have taken a significant step forward. In this context, today’s event may remind many of you of the fresh white chrysanthemum in the buttonhole of Cankar’s impoverished hero. However, more than anything else, we hope this chrysanthemum will inspire joy in work and self-awareness within our collective, both in good times and bad.
The generalized portrayal of RTV’s operations as inefficient can be a sign of ideological bias. If RTV is simultaneously underfunded and criticized as wasteful and of poor quality, while individuals within it produce excellent work, where does the judgment of poor quality originate, and how does it spread? Value judgments are the driving force behind our work. Every workplace has its internal criteria for efficiency and success, which is why differences in work quality exist in our organization, as in any other. Without criteria for excellence, internal motivation would diminish. Why strive for improvement if nothing can be changed? Employees are not equal in abilities or results, nor will they ever be. However, this does not mean that an employee with fewer visible achievements is inherently less important to the harmonious functioning of our collective. Those who master the soft skills of company management integrate agility into the company’s social network, fostering its creative potential. Orderly and harmonious relationships within the community stimulate creativity and statistically yield better results.
We are fortunate that RTV’s management network is composed of professionals, emerging from media, technology, culture, and other fields. As a result, managers typically understand the environment they come from but may be less familiar with the mechanisms of work at higher management levels. As one advances, professional expertise must be supplemented with knowledge of economics, rhetoric, administrative procedures, and law. Without these skills, management communication can only flow downward. The continuous reduction of maneuvering space in our business operations is a basic arithmetic exercise: subtraction. Two-way communication within our company, where leadership not only issues directives but also has a genuine opportunity to acknowledge quality work in return, inevitably intersects with Slovenian politics at the highest level. Unfortunately, this equation is often multiplied by zero—if we receive no response to a question, the answer is effectively “no.” The purpose of management is not to dismantle the work process, just as a captain’s essential duty is not to sink the ship. Our founder—the state—is the only entity competent to decide which of our services should be adequately funded in the public interest. By shifting this responsibility onto us, we are forced to play a futile guessing game about which services might be deemed redundant. Such public provocations are exhausting for employees. No one wants to saw off the branch they grew on, so I encourage you to remain optimistic.
Employees who are not involved in management can critically reflect on whether, in the role of leadership, they would have other options available to them. Could we be better equipped with information and a broader set of business solutions? Inter-level and, particularly, inter-departmental communication at RTV often resembles a children’s game of telephone, where the clarity of the message—and sometimes the message itself—gets lost. This is not due to the number of employees but rather due to insufficient internal connections. As a result, RTV operates as a cumbersome organization. How can we create multi-directional communication without interference? Your opinion matters. Some organizations enhance mutual interaction through intranet portals, such as “Suggestions to Management,” where employees can submit business innovations. These structured proposals are categorized by topic, with responses provided within a set timeframe, eliminating the feeling of helplessness that can stifle workplace motivation.
RTV employees frequently prove that we are capable of producing exceptional work under challenging conditions, demonstrating excellence and resilience regardless of the circumstances. Such efforts cannot always be adequately recognized externally. Each of us knows that, in key moments, we perform our tasks with the utmost dedication. If we recognize this effort in ourselves, we must also acknowledge it within our collective, both internally and externally. By doing so, we will be able to promote our organization with pride and confidence, recognizing that RTV offers us more than just financial compensation. When we are dissatisfied, let us remember that our professions, jobs, and status as public servants are the dreams of many.
Let us consider the impact of an influencer tweeting that RTV employs 80% too many workers. How does such a claim prepare the profession for self-destruction? A significant portion of our production exists in the national interest, where market success is not the primary objective. Do we sustain ourselves by broadcasting national celebrations? Commercial media do not require large staff numbers for the resale of media materials. We operate within a legislative framework with cost considerations, yet we have begun doubting our own value due to the opinions of non-experts. Those who hold the microphone dictate the narrative, just as those who hold a weapon control the room. This dynamic can unsettle audiences, especially those who desire predictability in content. Yet, a much larger segment thrives on the excitement of unpredictability. Social analysts often observe that Slovenians see themselves as experts in both football and RTV. This perception was reinforced by a recent public protest in which affected citizens resorted to insults and threats against employees. Does disregarding such groups indicate that we are no longer aligned with the public interest? In our society, there is no single truth; rather, multiple perspectives exist. The prevailing truth at any given moment is often determined more by power than by objective reality.
Disruptions in staffing balances in the name of “creative accounting” have deeply affected our professional production practices, largely because we have not effectively communicated the value of our content to the public. RTV must reach a consensus with its founder on the content it should produce for Slovenian society and receive adequate funding accordingly. Our goal is to create media and cultural products based on the real costs of all supporting activities, rather than through forced austerity. Today’s politics do not value culture as much as in the past, which is one reason why RTV has been in crisis management for decades. Externally, this appears as an inferiority complex—never good enough, never cheap enough. Let us recognize that seemingly cheap solutions can be the most costly in the long run. A screwdriver bought for ten cents may not unscrew a single screw. What we now call “economic optimization” was once known as “systematic destruction.” We must acknowledge that we will solve the current situation with rationality. A well-defined problem is already half solved, and the solution will require new ways of thinking, not the mindset that created the problem.
Dear awardees, we look forward to co-creating with you. Some of you will have opportunities to prove yourselves as future leaders, while others will continue to excel in professional roles. I encourage you all to leave your work processes in better condition than when you inherited them. Compare yourselves to the person you were yesterday. Many of you have gained valuable experience, knowledge, and skills at RTV SLO, and some have built public recognition beyond the workplace. Take the best of what you have received from our community and share it with the world. Thank you.
Dr. Žiga Stanič,
member of the RTV Slovenia Awards Commission