Disappointing thing was that replies to the CEO were captured by a machine which spat out the usual unfriendly, unwelcoming standard response from a recruiter not the CEO, thereby destroying the credibility of the plan to bring a fresh new innovative approach into the way the organisation worked.
In the second case, a new CEO was planning to come to listen to disenfranchised employees in the aftermath of a merger. The listening sessions were cancelled by HR because there was already a communications plan in place within which these sessions did not feature. Sadly that plan did not include any similar opportunity for employees to share their ideas and thoughts about the merger and the company was the poorer for the missed opportunity.
This quote by Ansel Adams got me thinking that sometimes there are in fact times when a CEO needs to jealously guard and protect their creative ideas for the future culture of their organisations, lest people with a less creative and maybe more rear view mirror perspective, thwart their most important of endeavours.
If the critical planks of culture building are laid, then there is the opportunity for an organisation to thrive and to allow everyone to develop and share their own creative initiatives.
