Would You Say It to Your CEO
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I'm not sure how to word this topic, but there is an idea that I have been having after many, many conversations where someone responds to me with a "comeback" in a thread that is so insane that I wonder if they are really thinking it through. It's been something I've been thinking about for months, but a discussion tonight really drove it home when someone basically said they would never do business with someone that actually looked after then and would only work with someone already identified as a con artist that took advantage of them.
This makes one think - what would they do if their boss or their owner or CEO read that statement? Would they say "yeah, he was a jerk trying to help me and save us money."
So often the statements made literally, when read calmly, state "I screwed over the company and I won't let anyone expose it" or "I'll never do business with someone trying to do the right thing for the company" or "I could care less about wasting money and putting the company at risk." The list could go on forever, but the basic idea is that people say things that, if read by the business itself, would sound an awful lot like sabotage, theft, or at least suggest uncaring or kickbacks or something similar.
I wonder how often people should think, always, about "what if my CEO was reading this?" Because, you never know when they are, of course, but that isn't the reason. Would it change your behaviour, your thought process, inject some reason; if you were picturing your CEO listening to the discussion and empathize as to how he would hear it?
The CEO will be thinking of it has HIS money being wasted, HIS company put at risk, HIS staff refusing to do their jobs, etc. Would it make people behave differently? Is it a good tool to keep in mind when we have our own discussions - picture the CEO there, would he feel you were out to protect the company, or are you out for some person gain in spite of the company?
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Post does not compute.
I'll consider myself fortunate to have not yet experienced this.
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What I meant, though, is less of "hey these people do this" and more of a "is this a technique to use to make us think better about decision making?"
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I think an even better approach to the entire topic that brought this one up is very simple.
"Would you do this with your own money or business?"
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@DustinB3403 said:
I think an even better approach to the entire topic that brought this one up is very simple.
"Would you do this with your own money or business?"
That's worth asking, but it doesn't carry the same weight mentally, I've found. Maybe I'm wrong, but that is my experience.
Here is why... if it is your money you are allowed to be emotional and buy whatever makes you personally happy. Screw profits. It's worth considering the personal aspect like you said, but don't rely on it.
Your CEO has no emotional attachment to the IT gear, but does to the money. And a CEO finding out that money is being wasted for -insert reason here- could result in embarrassment, punishment, firing or even a lawsuit. It's a different mental thing to consider.
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that's actually a really good way to explain it.
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Let me give an example of the former: if you are buying a car and you have "enough" money that you "can" buy anything you want, but just barely, it is totally up to you to choose between the Fiat and the Ferrari. Neither is wrong. It's all about personal preference of your value of your money versus the cars. Saying "if it was my money, I'd waste it on a Ferrari that I don't need" might not prompt you that something is wrong in a business setting. I see this happen all the time. People make work decisions as if they are at home.
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I bring the attitude to my job that I am investing myself in the success of the company, so I work as hard to make the company succeed as if I was the CEO of the company.
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You got any examples, because I've never come across anyone saying these things?
I've seen (and been involved in) discussions where people seem to interpret "I have a different opinion to you" to mean "I am insane and deliberately put my company at risk", but that's not the same thing.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
You got any examples, because I've never come across anyone saying these things?
I've seen (and been involved in) discussions where people seem to interpret "I have a different opinion to you" to mean "I am insane and deliberately put my company at risk", but that's not the same thing.
There was one last night that brought up the topic, but it is common. It is normally an emotional reaction to reasoning. I'll give a solid one from long ago not associated with any community.... a director was presented with a vendor selling a product that was known to not work and was going to cause a major project to fail and was presented with an internally tested, known working solution that was essentially free. When shown that the cost difference was only a million dollars he responded "I don't sign paper for only a million dollars."
Not only did he use that statement to funnel a million dollars to a vendor that he knew couldn't do the job, he let a project fail too!
