Exceptional leaders often excel as skilled storytellers, and for good reason. Once a company hits a certain level of organizational complexity, one of the most important tasks the CEO has is to craft intellectually coherent and captivating narratives about the firm, its purpose, and its performance.
Failure in this task means undermining the very existence of the company; a sin which Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan inadvertently committed earlier this week when he told the world that Zoom’s 8000+ staffers are expected to return to the office.
Before we delve deeper into how Eric Yuan potentially doomed his own company, its important to acknowledge that the merits of return-to-office plans remain under heated debate and academic evidence on the impacts remote working on productivity, retention and client satisfaction is evolving rapidly. This swift pace of developments puts CEOs in a difficult bind, requiring them to pre-empt future best practices by putting policies in place today. As a result, we should expect a wide range of opinions accompanied by an equally colorful bouquet of executive decision on the matter in the months and years to come.
However, for most companies the decision will not be nearly as consequential as it is for Zoom.
Good For Thee But Not For Me
Whenever CEOs communicate they face the arduous task of addressing two competing audiences; staff and clients. While messaging can differ, the core narrative should remain honest and consistent.
By ushering in the era of remote-first working with its connectivity technology, Zoom’s cultivated an image of a progressive company with a bold answer to what the workforce of the future looks like.
If asked, most clients would likely say that Zoom exists to help them be efficient and effective when working remotely. Underlying this proposition is an implicit narrative that remote work is in itself valuable and worth pursuing by Zoom’s clients.
The reason why Eric Yuan’s choice may well have doomed the company comes down to the simple fact that reality no longer lives up to the narrative he had worked hard to build for the company.
What Eric Yuan did this week was the equivalent of a doctor refusing his own prescription while simultaneously handing out bills to his patients.
The narrative dissonance clients are bound to feel puts the firm’s sales leads into an unenviable position where mental acrobatics are a new core competence.
What’s worse, the sudden push for an in-person model means that each and every Zoomer needs to reformulate their answers to ‘why do we exist’ and whether they still want to be a part of it.
Building Strong Cross-Audience Narratives Matters
As you boldly venture forth in your own leadership journey the key takeaway from Zoom’s misstep is this: never build and sell a product you wouldn’t proudly use yourself if you were the client.
It is also worth keeping in mind that CEO’s of today no longer have the luxury of separating in-house matters from the external world. Whenever you speak to your staff the whole world will be listening in.
This is why weaving narratives that translate fluently between all audiences has become more important than ever. It is also the reason why CEOs should abstain from undermining their firm’s external value proposition when setting internal policies.
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