CEOs Who Invite Email From All Employees

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Cinergy Corp. CEO James E. Rogers, who at 11 one evening was reading email from employees at home while nursing a vodka, is the norm, not the exception at major U.S. companies, the Wall Street Journal reports. 'Advocates say such a policy is a powerful leadership tool that can nip crises in the bud, boost morale, uncover new ideas, and cut through corporate red tape. In the post-Enron era of CEO accountability, reading employee email helps the boss appear hands-on and accessible. But reading and replying to dozens of employee messages each day takes time that could be spent doing something else. Skeptics say the practice distracts CEOs from more-pressing work -- and extends already long workdays.' Of course, portable email devices have made it easier to sift through dozens or hundreds of employee messages each day. While being driven to meetings, Pfizer's CEO says, 'I don't look out the window. I use my BlackBerry and answer my email.'"

Comments

it's more self-aggrandizing egotistical behavior

[yagu]

it's more self-aggrandizing egotistical behavior... than anything else.

You know what? I worked for a company, one of the telcoms that went through the upheaval of crooked leadership during the Enron days. One of our CEO's walked away with $500M, and they're still chasing him down -- I predict they'll NEVER get him. Our stock went from over $50 to under $2.

Then our shining knight on a white horse rode into town. He had a reputation for coming in and slashing jobs, but he had genuine likability and charisma about him. He also had an open e-mail policy, claimed he read and answered his e-mail. Guess what? He did!

I exchanged a few e-mails with him, and he always responded. Cool... two administrations before I'd always had pretty direct access at that level (I was pretty senior), and now it appeared the company was back to bidnez. His responses were short and non-expansive, but, hey, he IS the CEO.

Then, 9a.m. one morning about a year ago I got marched into a little room and set free. For a previous post with more info, look here.

Yeah, he read and answered his e-mail... but he always signed it (and I'm not making this up), "dick".

Technology makes middle-management obsolete

[nharmon]

Half of me thinks that if the middle-managers can't be trusted to take employee e-mails concerning business-related things, they should be replaced. The other half of me thinks that if technology gives the CEO greater span-of-control, then perhaps the middle-managers should be eliminated.

Corporate counterinsurgency strategy?

[Brunellus]

A similar program was used to great success in the Philippines during the communist insurgency of the Hukbalahap between 1945 and 1952. Then-Secretary of Defense Ramon Magsaysay made it known that anyone could send a telegram to his office, free of charge, for almost any reason--to report military misconduct, corruption, rebel activity, etc.

Thousands of telegrams came flooding in from rural stations. In one way, the program served as an extension of his famous random inspections of military units in the field--a move that increased effectiveness and readiness among those units. More importantly, it was a tremendous propaganda tool, giving even the most lowly peasant the chance to appeal to the very highest levels of the government--undercutting the mass base of the insurgents.

This sort of policy, then, would be a great way of keeping a lid on corporate unhappiness, if combined with enlightened & effective management. Well we can dream, right?

Re:Uhm... did anybody read that last line....

[Takumi2501]

I agree entirely. Let me add one more point.

If, as people seem to think, a CEO does nothing in a public company. There's a board of directors who would boot him/her out. Major companies don't make money by paying people obscene salaries to sit on their butts all day.

True, if you want to run a successful company, you have to delegate a lot of tasks to other people. This should be done, however, so that you can handle more imporant issues.

Bearing this in mind, I think that an open-inbox policy is a double-edged sword. Yes, it keeps the CEOs informed as to what's going on in the company, but I think it would be a wiser idea to have someone employed for the sole purpose of reading these e-mails, and forwarding the relevant ones to the appropriate recipients (including the CEO, if necessary).