Stop pretending executives care about stuff they don’t care about

Look at a tweet like this:

I guess the main thing I would want to know is, aside from customer-centricity and maybe bias to action, are executives at companies evaluated or bonus’ed off any of these things? No, right? Most of these are actually fluffy terms that don’t mean anything to most who come to run companies. As such, writing about them is kind of a “tree falls in the forest” problem, or just a giant vacuum. I mean, what executive is spending their Wednesday at 2pm worried about “collaborative reflex” as opposed to tasks and revenue generation? They’re just not.

We do this with tons of concepts around work, including “engagement,” “employee experience,” “inclusion,” “burnout,” and “social justice issues.” Executives nod at these things, the good ones kind of try to care, and most just mention them in all-hands meetings and move on, never to contemplate the topic again. I do some work in consulting here and there, and I’ve heard from some CEOs and their lieutenants that once Chauvin got convicted in the George Floyd case, a lot of them were…