Priorities in Statements v. Priorities in Action.

Cliff Atkinson has a post on his blog Beyond Bullets that discusses a Business 2.0 article on the secret CEO skills. He makes a point that brings up a frustration of mine:

"With at least 20% of the top 25 skills directly related to communication skills, it makes sense for any organization to invest at least 20% of its training budget to developing them."

A company cannot demand or, even worse, evaluate people on commincations skills including the use of presentations to large groups if they are unwilling to devote training dollars and time to the issue.

Companies often make statements of what is important to them. But someone in the company needs to take off the blinders and examine if the money and time is spent to support those statements, or if they are simply made on the wish theory that if they are proclaimed loud and often, they will spontanously appear on their own. I have worked for a company like this in the past; I have friends and family members that work for ones now.

Perhaps the most important CEO skill is creditibility with the people they lead. The associates have a pretty good BS detector and know when the emperor is wearing no clothes, has the trousers burning in the corner, is pulling ideas from an exposed orifice, or any other cliche you want to insert. As the organization grows in size, most associates only know the leader through these communiques. An obvious false or self-serving statement and the resumes of many bright individual start getting updated. . .