My letter to the CEOs of all the organizations in the world!

On the 10th of March 2010, I wrote a personal blog post with the title, "My letter to the CEOs of all the organizations in the world".

Below is the screen shot of the same from my old 'Personal' blog that I used to write and rant about a few things happening around me.

Visiting the old blog today (it still exists but I am not going to share the link as it has some harsh words about the reality existing in that era - be it political or anything else), I came across this post.

I don't know what I was thinking while writing this blog post but I am sure it would have been something funny that I came across on the 10th of March 2010, which prompted me to write this one.

The original post was as below:

Believe me, when a CEO goes home at the end of the day, he doesn't say to his wife,?"Honey, as we are about to transition from the dinner table to the bedroom, we need to proactively reassess your core competencies, and maybe shift some paradigms, because I have some important issues that need to be reconciled if we want to continue to have a world-class marriage."

CEOs and other corporate executives have the same problem. They sound a lot different when they're being "official." When they're being "official", they stiffen up and assault the English language.

I'm convinced that there is a software program out there called "CEO Column." All any corporate editor has to do is plug in the name of the company, and the program will spit out a ready-made, generic column with sentences like this:"

As we proactively ramp up our core competencies and shift paradigms in order to transition to a world-class organization, [Your Company Name Here] remains committed to one thing: Employees are still our greatest asset."

I may sound funny but just pick any 4 mails/columns/blogs written by 4 different CEOs. The words will always be the same, well at least 95% of the time. Why is it so? Why can't the CEOs understand that they are dealing with humans and not machines?

There are 3 easy steps to overcome this for any CEO.

1. Keep it simple: There are simple employees working in your company. They don’t need that assaulted English language to get your message. They can understand the same in plain English as well.

2. Keep people first: Rather than writing 600 words on a new idea in your brain, try to gather some burning topics which employees are facing. Find solutions to the employees’ problems. They are the company!

3. Talk freely: Make yourself sound as if you're sitting in a bar having a drink, talking about the company (for me the company is always its people). Your employees will notice the difference immediately. Make it happen by being approachable to the people and not just the board members.

What I think about this post today?

2010 was so much simpler! "Synergy" was the big word, not all this "holistic cross-platform engagement" stuff. This blog post is spot on, man. It's like a flashback to when CEOs used to talk only in jargon.

They all sounded the same, like some software (this was pre ChatGPT era my friends!) was writing their speeches for them. "Core competencies," "world-class organizations"—same old story. Poor editors just had to put in the company name, and boom, ready-made article to bore everyone.

But this blog post has some good advice, simple but good. "Keep it simple," "think about your people," and "talk freely."

It's basic stuff, but CEOs don't get it. Imagine if a CEO talked to employees like they were chatting at the local theka! (New generation can assume that Theka = Wine Shop / a Pub for recent chromosomes).

Wah! It would be a revolution! If CEOs stopped using big words and started talking about what their employees actually cared about, everyone would be much happier.

It's sad that even now, in 2024, we're still talking about this. Someone should send this blog post to all the CEOs, with "VERY IMPORTANT" written on it in big letters!

And I just visited the DISCLAIMER section of my old blog! It read something like this.

Denial of Responsibility!

This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. In addition, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time. I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of the various memes running around my brain, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today.        

Time travel is gooooood!

Have you done time travel recently?

(By the way, my old blog is still there on the internet and I enjoy one flashback every month now)