Executive Communication

A fascinating topic i feel. So often comms from up above can be very dry and functional. However one of my former directors would always liven up his emails to staff with personal stories and with unique ways of getting his point across.

 
In a similar vein the new Nokia CEO has attempted to capture the imagination of his staff by posting the following (leaked by a technology blogger)

 
Hello there,

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a "burning platform," and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.

Over the past few months, I've shared with you what I've heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I'm going to share what I've learned and what I have come to believe.

I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.

And, we have more than one explosion - we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.

He then goes on to talk specifically about the challenges the company faces.

Is this the sort of communication we should aspire to have with staff? I mention this because a member of staff in Southend gave some very robust feedback about the language use as a lean function, and mentioned that a lot of the agents didn't want to speak up for fear of being seen as stupid. I worked on that presentation for the rest of the day, to remove complicated phrasing..... should it have even been there in the first place?