A short transcript of a conversation between Chad Silverstein and another speaker about the difficulty employees have telling founders/CEOs the truth. It emphasizes creating psychological safety, over-communicating, offering multiple channels for feedback (e.g., town halls), and building trust so employees feel heard and will advocate for the company.
Chapters
You know, it's a really hard thing.
People have such a hard time telling the truth and telling the owner, the.
Founder, the CEO the truth because they don't think it's their place.
They're afraid they're going to get fired. They're afraid it's going to impact their income. They don't want things to change. They don't want to be viewed a certain way.
They don't want to look stupid, whatever it is. And to create a safe environment where.
People can feel comfortable is priceless.
You know, people, people really will. Will go to bat for a company when they feel that they are being heard. We used to run town hall meetings and we'd let anyone come and they can ask whatever they want. It was an hour to show up and we'd bring in some pizza and we'd say, ask whatever you want. We'd be talking about everything in the company. So then when people complained about things, we'd say, you know, shame on you for not coming. You know, you could say you don't know. But the leaders can only do so much, you know, over communicate for sure. Make that a discipline. And better that you said a little too much than not tell them anything at all. And you have to make sure that you give opportunities to have different paths for how people can communicate with you. Especially if you're growing your company and you're untouchable.
You're in the corner office, you're in a remote office, you have hundreds of employees, you got to still be creative.
And you're not off the hook. And you can't just say, my only team is going to be my leadership team. That may be your direct reports, but you're responsible for everybody if you're leading, especially if you're at the head of the system. So create the environment that's going to allow you to get the information you need. And you got to work on the trust to be able to get people to feel comfortable to do that.
