Something for all of you to chew on.
A few days ago I had a little professional disagreement with a fellow consultant. I said that the most important function of a CEO or any person who calls himself as the chief decision maker is to 'talk' .ie. to continuously engage his/her employees in a conversation so that employees are able to constantly touch base with the higher hierarchy of the organization. My colleague disagreed. Her contention is that the CEO has better things to do. Really?
What does a CEO do? Through whom does he do the things he wants to do? Who are the messengers who are supposed to carry his messages? Who else but his employees (many CEO's often say they prefer to call them 'my people'). Whatever.
But, the question is do you talk to your people or are you leaving them to their own devices? Are your people well informed of the changes that you are going to demand from them soon? Have they heard from you through your own words about the possible M&A that is going to happen soon? Or are they still in the dark and fearful of their future? Have you explained to them why all these cost cutting measures are necessary? Or, are your people making up all sorts of dooms day scenarios?
It may not sound glamorous for a CEO to say that his major job function is to 'talk'. But, except for the most ignorant, I am sure that the rest of us will understand what he means when he says that. In essence, a CEO's most critical task is to engage his employees in a manner that gives them the confidence to face up to the challenges ahead and the avenue to clear any doubts or lingering uncertainty. And, this 'talking engagement' must be done on a continuous basis. It is no use for a CEO to start taking to his employees only when the organization is in trouble. It will be too late by then.
In my dealings with organizations big and small, the one thing that I often hear is how easy or difficult it is to meet and talk to the respective CEOs. Inevitably,when I come across a group of managers who seem to be passionate about their work and are
actively living the vision, mission and brand promise of their organization, they also praise how easy it is for them to meet and talk to their CEO. And, as you might have guessed already, the opposite is almost always true too.
Focus groups, town halls, division meetings, regional meetings are all fantastic opportunities for the CEO to engage in a conversation with his employees. The problem is that usually all these forums end up as 'instruction giving time' an over time employees tend to view these forums as harbinger of bad news and more work! Can we blame them?
So, I stand by my statement : We need talking CEOs! (you know what I mean!)
