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CEOs too scripted, not authentic enough, business bloggers say

DH | February 17, 2012 | 0 Comments

Where do CEOs fail in communications? According to 10 interviews with business bloggers conducted by The10Company, they aren’t courageous, they’re too scripted, and they don’t acknowledge mistakes. That doesn’t apply simply to top execs’ own mistakes, either. Bloggers say CEOs should address corporate excesses in general, according to a report by Matt Wilson for Ragan.com.

“It would be great to just hear someone say that things need to change,” one said.

The10Company offers some advice to CEOs for how to do a better job of being authentic—shun corporate-speak, tell stories, be blunt—but how easy is that to do? There’s more to it than simply typing the honest truth about everything into a Twitter feed, communicators say.

The good points

The bloggers who were interviewed make good points, says Katrina Olson, a lecturer at the University of Illinois and principal at Katrina Olson Strategic Communications. Avoiding jargon is imperative for anyone who wants to seem authentic, she says.

Top 5 phrases that signal inauthenticity:

Survey respondents identified the following phrases as red flags:

1. This deal is a win/win.

2. Thinking/working/planning outside the box.

3. We’re not here to talk about the past.

4. We are an innovative company.

5. Executive X is stepping down to spend more time with his family.

“Not only bloggers, but today’s savvy consumers see right through this kind of wording and assume the CEO who uses them is trying to hide the truth or not disclose all the facts,” Olson says. It would be quite refreshing to hear a top executive simply state that someone was fired for embezzlement and that the company is working on new safeguards, for example, rather than hearing that someone is leaving “to spend more time with his family.”

Jonathan Bernstein, author of “Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management” and president of Bernstein Crisis Management, says he encourages CEO clients to speak to stakeholders as though they’re sitting in their living room. Lots of CEOs say they have trouble sounding anything but “CEO-like,” which Bernstein says means “stuffy.”

“Very, very few CEOs are naturally capable of this level of effective communication,” Bernstein says. “Some inherently have more skill than others. But to be really good at it, they need to practice until they’re so good it doesn’t look like they’ve rehearsed at all.”

Read the full story at Ragan.com.