Boss'' boss asks me about a post on our in-company forum; what to do? (long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

You guys taught me all I needed to know about messageboards. So here’s a question how o explain the phenomenon of messageboards to VIP’'s unfamiliar with them.

I work for a medium level government organization with 700 people. OUr company wanted to be “” open, transparent and professional"" the motto of the last reorganization) and one of the things they installed to accomplish that was an in-company messageboard. So now we have an older version and a newer shiny version (Yammer). Both are not very succesfull, mostly because we don’t have a culture yet that understands messageboarding. I get the impression that most people think of messageboarding as the equivalent of a couple of malcontents standing around on a streetcorner moping an muttering amongst themselves. While I think that it doesn’'t get more open and transparent then posting on an messageboard, especially since our incompany messageboards are not anonymous.

In a recent company speech, one of our CEO’s mentioned that in order to end compartimentalization, they would experiment with open floor plans in our office. We now have offices shared by 2 or 3 people.

I heard so many people groan and moan about this, and I knew that social science had said it was mostly a bad idea, so, I posted a thread to our in company forum saying just that. In a polite, but entertaining way, the way I learnt here :wink:

The thread was, by the standards of our in company forums, a big success. Lots of heartfelt responses. But none from management.

Curious, and wanting to keep our CEO to their remarks that anyone with questions could always approach them personally, I sent one of our three CEO’s an polite email asking if they would join in the conversation.

I got an emial back this morning saying she appreciated me adressing her personally, and inviting me for a cup of coffee to talk it over.

This has been their response on more recent similar occasions. Most co-workers who hear that feel that the one invited for coffee will get his butt kicked and that this is another reminder never ever to stick one’s neck out. The co-worker who went for the talk, however, ( I know her) said they just had a pleasant chat with the CEO explaining their vision. And no, the coworker was not fired or demoted afterwards.

I feel that the CEO just doesn’t GET how these things work. Like I said, most co-workers who hear about a co-worker invited for coffee with the CEO feel she will get her butt kicked and that this is another reminder never ever to stick their own necks out. Especially not on the in company forum. Which is the biggest reason why the incompany forum is so f*ing boring and so dead silent. Just a few bragging posts of the "I had a very stimulating meeting with company X this morning, our project x is firmly on its way!"variety.

I feel that by thanking me to adress her personally in an e-mail, she shows again that she doesn’t get how forums work. By posting a thread with her name in the OP, what was I doing but adressing her personally? I was giving her an opportunity to adress the concerns my thread neatly gathered up for her. I was doing an interpretation, some research, a public poll and a publishing of the results of said poll for her. What better thing could she do then just respond in that thread? If we wanted to act acoording to the motto together, transparent and professional?

Instead, she acts like I had been talking about her behind her back and am finally adressing her personally now.

I am not scared to accept her offer for coffee. But I don’ts see the use. So what if she convinces me that the idea of experimenting with open floor plans will be a good one? Should I then post in my thread with her arguments?

That is like having a discussion in a GD thread between me and…well, someone with a lot of standing in GD, like Chronos. And then Chronos sending me a PM to talk it out in PM so that I can come back in the thread and post what Chronos thinks and how I am all convinced now.

It seems like a waste of a good discussion and a waste of the instrument of in-company forums. While those forums were hailed as the big thing and we all should use them and be modern and open and in which forums the CEOs invested a lot of money.

So, before I accept her offer for coffee…what say the wisdom of the crowds?

(And before you say: “well Maastricht, you just committed professional suicide” I don’'t think that is what happened here.)

2

I think you’re over thinking it, and it may be that the boss is simply the kind of person who prefers to have conversations with people face-to-face rather than through a message board.

I say go to the meeting and at the end of the meeting state that you would like the key points from your discussion to go on the message board, so that all the other participants have the opportunity to hear the boss’ thoughts, and would the boss like to add that message herself or is she happy for you to make the post?

3

It’s my professional experience that a majority of businesses that want to implement these kinds of in-house social networks with a message board or blog component (Yammer, SharePoint, etc…), do so with a lot of trepidation and lack of understanding of what they are opening themselves up for. Additionally, they want to put a lot of controls and rules about what is acceptable to post. Since they can’t really control what people are going to say and they are confronted with that reality, they get scared and begin to think it was a mistake.

To some extent, it is.

A workplace, no matter how large, is still a place with a structured hierarchy where people are accountable to their supervisors and where dissent is often seen as insubordination and therefore quickly punished. Few managers are secure enough to be able to take criticism constructively. Same goes for the rank and file, by the way. Nobody wants to publicly admit they’ve made a mistake or have it exposed to their co-workers.

So while anonymous message boards like this one work well in a non-professional settings, it is mostly because there is no danger of committing “professional suicide” by saying the wrong thing.

So while I don’t think you’ve ended your career, getting called to the principals office for a chat is certainly a sign that your leadership is not entirely prepared for the “open and transparent” organization they have been told they should implement at their last senior leadership conference.

I think this coffee thing will be okay. I doubt you’ll hear anything concrete in the way of guidance from your management. They are just scared and want some re-assurance that you’re not some sort of disgruntled trouble maker or a possible thorn in their side. But I do think they’ll want you to take it down a notch.

It’ll be interesting to hear what is said over coffee. Please share it if you are able.

4

I think “Quicksilver” pretty well nailed it. We went through the same thing in my company. The message board for all intents and purposes is no longer is active. A shame considering we have about 20,000 employees. It never did get too much activty from the begining.

5

Just to be safe, before drinking the coffee make a distraction and swap cups with her.

6

Send her the a copy of the OP.

The whole thread, to show how a forum works, if everyone is polite.

7

Even if someone “gets” message boards, there are plenty of reasons why a private chat may be desired. I would not take it as an indication that the CEO does not understand how things work.

Now as to what will happen during the chat, I have worked at companies where I would expect the CEO to be encouraging, grateful for input, share rationales, and maybe even be open to changing positions. On the other hand, I have also worked at companies where the invitation would be a prelude to a smack-down. I don’t know the culture of your company, so I can’t say what it will be, but I wouldn’t be afraid to go, regardless.

Also, I would just remind you of something you probably already know. A company-sposored message board is much different than a public board like this. Even in companies that value openness, you should be much more circumspect and careful on a company message board. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t state your opinions, but do it in a different way than you might here.

8

If you’re comfortable having the conversation, I would suggest raising the issues you brought up in the OP with the CEO. Find out if management’s idea of an open forum is indeed different from yours or if they truly don’t understand. From there, maybe you can explore what their expectations are (or were) for the message board and possibly even advise them how to better address the forum.

Of course, if they are not really interested in participating in the forum and simply installed it as a consequence of the reorganization, it’s entirely possible management sees it as window dressing they neither need nor want to be involved with — in which case it probably will devolve into content-less bragging or reckless whining.

(Disclaimer: Although I have had plenty of experience in office environments, I have never been involved in a company-managed message board.)

9

I guess I don’t see the value in calling out your CEO about a decision that has already been made. If she had asked for suggestions, then a message board discussion would have been appropriate. But if she made a decision, said this is how it is, then I think it’s inappropriate to call that into question on a company wide message board.

If you felt strongly, then it would have been correct to communicate your concerns to her directly. But basically, you started an open bitch session about one of her decisions. It’s not the Dope there - it’s a company board.

I bet the coffee chat is a smackdown, with a reminder of the proper forum for complaints. And she’s right, IMHO.

10

I agree with this. Steer the conversation with the CEO to be about the message board, not about open floor plans.

11

I wonder if, after your coffee, you could post the gist of your conversation on the message board. And send her a link.

12

Don’t bother; both cups have been laced with iocane powder.

13

I wonder if it might have something to do your boss’s boss not being all that used to interacting on a message board, or on a computer at all, so posting herself on the company message board did not occur to her?

Perhaps she is of the generation of managers for whom communicationg by e-mail means her secretary makes printouts of her incoming mails, she peruses them in her daily mail folder together with the day’s paper letters, she then pens a reply (regretting the passing of secretaries taking shorthand), or dictates the reply to tape, for her secretary to type and send the response e-mail?

14

I agree completely with Quicksilver.

Even in government, higher-ups get lots of directives on how they’re supposed to be more open and more supportive of underlings, and how they’re supposed to foster a more informal work environment.

They sort of HAVE to, because they got told this is what the new buzz is, and their own bosses (commissions, management conferences, state government advisors) have told them they need to. But they don’t WANT to.

Their hands are sort of forced here. They like things as they are (or even if they don’t, they don’t want to be TOLD what they have to do to fix it, especially if it’s an idea they aren’t comfortable with in the first place) but they have to go along with it.

So they put a nice superficial effort into place, and the social work atmosphere (the old “water cooler talks”) makes sure that everyone understands that the REAL goal is to torpedo the new thing by not participating.

Example from my own workplace - Admin was told that having a more “collaborative” work atmosphere would help productivity and morale (actually, cost-of-living raises and any sense of agency would help, but that’s beside the point) so they installed a “company Wiki” - that they immediately informed everyone (verbally, nothing written in policy, of course) that no one was allowed to edit or contribute to, except certain “approved” people, and those contributions and edits had to be approved by a committee before they were actually made. And now they wonder why no one uses the “group” wiki. :smack:

15

Does the company message board have people post with their real names, or are they allowed to use handles?

I agree with the suggestions to go to the meeting with an agenda – probably talking about the message board and how it is not being understood, maybe something else.

And if I may be allowed to digress for a second, I also get that many people are very reluctant to “stick their necks out”, but wow – I feel sorry for any organization that discourages people from innovation or disruptive thinking. It’s one thing to have a malcontent who is going to second-guess every management decision and hold grudges about not being viewed as a genius or whatever. But it’s another thing to be afraid to think and be creative. In my own view, if you aren’t sticking your neck out sometimes, you’re a replaceable cog in the machine. I shall step down from my soapbox now.

16

Well, it’s the CEO. Generally they’re pretty good at the PR/management aspect of things. Even if you get a smackdown, it’s in-private and probably not gonna be all that bad. Likely she’s either going to:

  1. thank you for bringing the problem to her attention, and tell you that the decision is final.
    or
  2. thank you for bringing the problem to her attention, and tell you that they’re reversing the decision based on employee input. After all, it was only instituted as an experiment.

I wouldn’t assume she doesn’t know how message boards work, but she is probably unwilling to put out anything in writing because CEOs are well-versed in CYAs. Bring your best game face, enjoy the coffee, and let us know how it goes.

17

My advice would be to not forget for one second that he/she is the Boss.

They have nothing to gain by participating in your message board thread, it sounds like the decision has been made and they may feel that they do not have to justify their decisions to the rank and file just because the complaints are made through a message board.

Feedback is one thing, but good feedback is best done in private and publicly asking your boss to come and justify herself was hardly likely to go down well. If I was a CEO and one of my staff started a public debate about my decisions I would rip them a new one.

18

My company has facebook, youtube, and twitter accounts. I will never, ever post on any of them, even to say hello. I keep all of that stuff far, far away from my coworkers.

You’ve got guts and I’d like to know how it turns out.

19

Well, much of suicide is intent, so, it may be reasonable that you didn’t think it is what happened!

But, by putting her name up before contacting her, IMHO, you broke ‘the rules’. To me, you sort of challenged her to put up or shut up, before she was even contacted about any of it.
So, at this stage, you may be in for a tight-lipped-smiling “Don’t you ever do that again!”

That’s my thought on the matter.

Good luck.

20

Real names.

Rachallelogram, what is a CYA? Urban dictionary says it is: “A really nerdy way to say goodbye to someone… usually on AIM or some sort of instant messenging program.” And that can’t be right. :slight_smile:

Thanks all for your input. I’ll go and let you know if I still have a job afterwards.

I’ve been thinking what my own motivation for all this is. And I guess I’m just really annoyed by the doublespeak Lasciel describes, but the point is that i don’t really know IF it is doublespeak. Sometimes I think the higherups want to allow a freeer culture, and get understandably cold feet at some points. And sometimes I think you can’t become a CEO without being totally cynical about these things and blatantly saying one thing while meaning another, and that only naive pollyannas like myself actually think it they meant it, when management said that “discussion about the reorganization should be open and lively”.