Most CEOs have an accumulation of business and life experiences that, in the eyes of their generally younger employees, could be classified as wisdom.
A truly wise CEO will constantly appreciate how much they have yet to learn, and figure out how to do that (reading “The Power of Peers” is a good place to start). But if for comparison purposes we were to generously grade the “wisdom” of a CEO at any point in time as a 10 (on a 10 scale), how would we grade the wisdom of the average employee? Would it be a two? A four? A six?
Wouldn’t it be great for the business if a CEO could get the average employee to a seven, eight or nine? Too often, it’s much less than this, and at the end of day, that’s an issue for the CEO to lead the way in solving.
Teaching moments happen all the time
I define a “teaching moment” as some occurrence, event, accomplishment or development — good or bad, inside or outside the company — that gives a CEO the chance to impart wisdom to the team.
To some extent, these “moments” happen every day in the business. Yet they have varying degrees of importance, so not all of them deserve to be flagged and commented upon. Moreover, as organizational wisdom evolves, only those moments that might truly advance the wisdom deserve CEO commentary.
A CEO should be on the lookout for these opportunities at least once a month. Too many instances and the CEO won’t be heard, too few and the CEO is missing chances to teach. I’m not in favor of scheduling these, but the CEO should seize the opportunity to make a point the moment a teachable moment occurs, and if two occur in the same week, then so be it.
Crisp, readable, from-the-heart, all-hands emails work best
A CEO can’t call an all-hands meeting every time there’s something important to report. Email enables the CEO to carefully write the message and make his or her point to employees in the best way possible.
You want to be logical, concise and impactful, as well as readable and entertaining — storytelling is the best way to do that. Some CEO’s are good writers and can do this on their own. Those that are challenged should get the input of a trusted writer before sending a note out.
But the CEO must also assume the email will be forwarded anyplace outside the company either innocently or maliciously, even in spite of restrictive company policies on nondisclosure. One might think this danger would dramatically restrict the teaching moments a CEO can take advantage of.
Yet I find almost all teaching moments can be validly couched to avoid being either too revealing, or negatively interpreted by outside eyes.
In the end, these notes can be kept in a repository accessible by any current or new employees and referred to whenever the information can be helpful. ●
Lonnie Martin is Chair at Vistage International/Sacramento
