Why Employees are More Trusted Than the CEO
I had to look up the phrase “chattering classes,” which is a Britishism. It is, interestingly, “frequently derogatory,” (not sure why–was it coined by the upper class?) and means “members of the educated metropolitan middle class, esp. those in academic, artistic, or media circles, considered as a social group freely given to the articulate, self-assured expression of (esp. liberal) opinions about society, culture, and current events.”
Hmm.
Basically, the reason that employees are more trusted than the CEO is that a plurality of people think that a credible spokesperson is “a person like myself.”
This is the part I just don’t get. When did we transfer credibility from people with real knowledge and authority to people like ourselves? As a stockholder, do I want to hear what a lot of average Joes think about Federated Department Stores? If I’m really, really doing a lot of research for some reason (which I normally don’t), then sure, I might read a blog by Janet in the cosmetics department at Bloomingdales in Cleveland—sometimes employees, especially if they’ve been around for a while, have a good sense of whether cutbacks are in the wind, and are willing to be more blunt than company officers. But that doesn’t replace hearing what the CEO and CFO have to say about the company’s direction. They know that stockholders Google everything and know everything—what employees are saying, what the analysts are saying, and whether the company directors have filed to sell stock. If they hedge or lie, they’re stupid, and the stock value will reflect the fact that the company is run by stupid people.
But then, I’m an idealist—a grouchy one, but still. It’s not that I don’t believe that the AJs have something to contribute–they definitely do. My quarrel–in my usual can’t-see-the-forest way, is with the idea that someone like me has more to tell me than someone kind of like me but smarter and with more perspective.
Clarifying IBM’s Strategic Mission for Social Media
IBM’s approach to social media is amazing. It’s extremely forward-thinking of them to put real power behind employee-generated content and collaboration. The most interesting and telling comment of Philippe Borremans’: “It doesn’t matter where the content comes from, as long as it’s good content.”
Is there another side to the story, I wonder? They added “structure” to existing information–I wonder if that had any effect on the information (i.e., was there any censorship). Obviously (giving the lie to my protestations above) what Joe Random Employee has to say about the structure might carry more weight than what Philippe Borremans has to say.
Discussion question: We all want a lot more information than we used to. Is there a balance between wanting information from “regular folks” and wanting information from experts? And how do companies put some structure around public information, and how do they distance themselves from misinformation/disinformation?
I think there has always been, in the US at least, a certain amount of skepticism with regards to the owners of large corporations. That what corporate spokesman said was not always completely trustworthy. I do not mean that these people were all criminals and liars but that people in general accepted some self serving on the part of a corporation.
What just popped into my head was how Johnson and Johnson responded to the tainted Tylenol. J&J is always used a the benchmark now for companies in how they handle a crisis. The did everything they could to take all that product off the shelf and were up front with the public in an exceedinly frank way. And the public responded to that with trust and a embracing of J&J’s products. There have not been many companies that have matched that benchmark since.
Instead people have become more accustomed to scandals such as Enron. That’s why when employees of a company such as IMB or Microsoft can discuss their products openly and how the company is progressing or what they need to be following up on, the general public feels a sense of credibility that they otherwise would not.
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