Bill Canady argues that everyone in a company ultimately reports to the CEO, and that how a leader responds in the first 90 seconds to bad news determines whether the person who delivered it survives. A softened reaction signals that truth is negotiable.
Whatever the org chart says about who they report to administratively, in truth, they report directly to the CEO. And that's you in this category. And then the part everybody underestimates, air cover. The first time your profit is right, somebody's gonna be embarrassed, not humiliated, embarrassed. A leader's going to find out that in front of their peers, that a piece of their business they've been describing one way looks different in the data. That is not a risk. That is a role. Working exactly as designed. What you do in the next 90 seconds decides whether that role survives the rest of the year. If you soften it, well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's context here. Let's take it offline. The role's dead. Might as well shoot it. It's dead that afternoon, and every person in the room just learned in real time that truth in this company is negotiable if you're senior in it.
