The post reports on the decline in trustworthiness of CEOs as measured by their perceived candor in the letters to shareholders that accompany annual reports. The study, by Rittenhouse Rankings, says that more and more CEOs are making “confusing and misleading statements” or creating a “dangerous fog” of misunderstanding.
This is not surprising. CEOs are at the top of the corporate-speak chain and are the ones who are most responsible for their company’s message and credibility. If the CEO believes in obfuscating, then everyone below him or her knows their job is in jeopardy if they provide too much factual, straight-forward information.
The serious problem is that this is hopelessly out-of-date, almost to the point of being comical. In the age of Internet communications, CEOs can’t simply wall themselves off in the C-suite and speak in regal tones. That might have worked 30-50 years ago, but it’s a dangerously outdated way of thinking now.
Now, CEOs and other corporate chieftains (with the help of their outside communications counsel) must embrace the new communications reality — and fast. One of the reasons I was intruiged by Kodak’s naming of a “chief blogger” was that it sounded like social media was getting closer to the C-suite (not true in this case, it was just a title).
Going forward, CEOs and CEO wannabes have to:
- Understand social media and Web 2.0
- Think through the implications of how major digital communications technologies like digital cameras, digital camcorders and digital sound recorders, not to mention Internet-enabled laptops, are smashing down communications barriers
- Get their messaging act together: know what you want to say, and know how to say it in audience-friendly language (using facts and figures, examples, stories, analogies and metaphors).
The last point is really the starting place to solving the candor problem. It’s a lot easier to be credible when you’ve thought through what you want to say.
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