By Fraser P. Seitel
We Yahoo! shareholders rejoiced last week with the announcement that Yahoo! founder and erstwhile CEO Jerry Yang had left the company – finally!
Yang was arguably, a genius, a visionary who created a vibrant search engine when few others could conceive of such innovation. He was also, inarguably, the worst, most shareholder-destructive CEO in the history of modern American business.
When Yahoo! began to be eclipsed by Google, Facebook and other Internet innovators, Wang steadfastly refused to sell all or part of the company he had founded.
Singlehandedly, in rejecting Microsoft’s bid to buy Yahoo! for in excess of $30 a share, Wang cost his shareholders and fellow employees tens of millions of dollars. The stock today creeps along at $16.
The departure of Jerry Wang, as joyous as it is for long-suffering Yahoo! shareholders brings to mind the question that all public relations professionals must face at one time on another: How do we welcome in the new CEO?
Whether the departing chief is beloved or, as in the case of Jerry Wang, despised, it falls on the PR department to orchestrate a communication plan to “introduce” the successor to the community. It is axiomatic in public relations that, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” So how an incoming CEO handles his or her first days in the saddle is critical in setting a tone for the administration to come.
Beyond the obvious imperative of meeting with the Board, other publics are key for the new CEO to meet quickly. For example:
In a day when productivity is at a premium and trust in and loyalty to one’s employer has faded markedly, it’s important that the incoming CEO “recognize” publicly how essential the staff is to the organization.
To achieve this, an incoming CEO should meet the staff first, before venturing out into the community. The easiest way to do this is with an all-hands reception at headquarters, where employees meet the new CEO in an informal, low-key, catered, celebratory setting.
As to “program,” the best case is to hear, briefly, from only two speakers – the outgoing and incoming CEOs. Remarks should be light and heartfelt, rather than strategic or lengthy. Tone takes precedent over substance. And the objectives of such a party are 1) to underscore that employees are most important and 2) the transition from old to new will be seamless.
Beyond the all-hands meeting, specific groups of employees may be especially important for the new CEO to single out – senior managers in a bank, doctors in a hospital, etc. These internal publics may rate special meetings, if for no other reason than to reinforce their own self-importance perception.
- Courtesy calls to local leaders.
Local leaders are another group that must be considered early in a new CEO’s itinerary.
Politicians live to be “recognized.” A smart, new CEO will understand that predilection toward vanity and indulge the local leaders accordingly. For example, the new CEO of Eli Lilly, as a citizen of Indianapolis, should pay a courtesy call on the mayor, regardless of whether local politics has any immediate bearing on the multinational conglomerate.
The new CEO of the gas company in San Francisco should not only visit the local political leadership, but set out to Sacramento and Washington to make sure that state and national representatives don’t get their prominent noses out-of-joint.
The new CEO of the local hospital will make a point of visiting the CEOs of the five largest employers in town, whose employees and their families compose the base of local healthcare patients.
Typically, the new CEO will have little experience with the local media. Just as typically, he or she will have no particular desire to alter that non-existent relationship.
But as trepidacious as the new CEO might be to wade into the media waters, your job as PR advisor is to make sure that key beat writers are dealt with early. Best plan is to schedule one-on-one, off –the-record lunches for key reporters, so that the new CEO make the acquaintance of the Fourth Estate in a more relaxed setting.
Just as with any other session where the recipient may be taking mental notes, the CEO must be briefed on hot issues and likely topics. Also, since many new CEOs aren’t familiar with the devious workings of the press, you should warn the new man or woman that even though what he says is not to be used – nonetheless, he must consider that “everything is on the record.” So cuidado.
At a proper interval after taking over, the new CEO should make it his business to get out and meet important customers. The best way to do this is to precede the visit with a generic letter from the CEO to clients expressing “how excited I am for the challenge and how much I’m looking forward to visiting with you.”
Following up such a letter with a personal visit makes a lasting impression on customers too often used to being taken for granted. Here again, the new CEO can’t visit every client but…………if 10% of your customers account for 90% of your revenue, then it’s well worth a personal visit by the new CEO to each of those 10% cherished clients.
Every organization has its own special publics besides those singled out here. After the CEO is settled, it often makes sense to address these important but less immediately critical constituents in a speaking forum.
Analysts and investors, for example, might be covered by the new CEO participating in the very next quarterly earnings conference call, generally presided over by the chief financial officer.
The same holds for community-based CEOs addressing key local organizations – Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, etc. – to overview the outlook for the company or the bank or the hospital or the non-profit.
The point is in his or her first several months in the saddle, the new CEO should consider meeting important constituent publics as a front-burner responsibility. And that’s regardless of whether his predecessor departed with accolades from his colleagues and head held high or, like Yahoo!’s lamentable Jerry Yang, with contempt from his shareholders and tail between legs. |