# So, My CEO is Talking with Me. . . **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 11, 2015, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251 "2015-06-11T13:36:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/21 "2015-06-11T23:18:58Z")
I may ne better at corporate bullshit than I thought. I’ve been with this company for eight years and have worked myself up to a position of obscurity in that time ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/22 "2015-06-11T23:38:20Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Which is pretty empty, even allowing for the fact that ‘leverage’ is not a verb I’m pretty sure you can verb any noun in the language. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/23 "2015-06-11T23:44:06Z")
Was there some reason you responded to an ‘anonymous’ survey in such a way as to identify yourself? To respond: I’d like to meet this guy - I hope he is calling your BS - OK, smart guy, let’s see just how well **you** do at turning a company’s direction. I really do hope this is your basic, in-your-face “Put Up or Shut Up”. Are the terms “leverage” (verb) and “synergy” (business operations) still used? I thought those had died of derision in the early 90’s. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/24 "2015-06-12T01:35:48Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > But, we get nag emails if we don’t fill them out, with the nag-email-list limited to those who haven’t filled them out (but nevertheless insisting that they are anonymous). Us, too. So what you do is give decent results where you can, and if you have to say something tepid, follow it with a suggestion that would fix it. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/25 "2015-06-12T01:38:09Z")
> [@bup](#): > > even allowing for the fact that ‘leverage’ is not a verb > **[Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/leverage)** > > The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years! ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/26 "2015-06-12T01:49:21Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/27 "2015-06-12T02:05:43Z")
Thank Og I work in a strong union state and have tenure, in addition to 27 years seniority. Every time we get email surveys like that I make it a point to tell the Truth. TPTB _really_ don’t like being told that their “bold new strategy for the future of education” has been tried at least 3 times in my time in the district, and it crashed and burned each time, with increasing velocity and collateral damage. They generally leave me alone to teach my classes the way I see fit and don’t ask me to play with others. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/28 "2015-06-12T06:18:37Z")
I sincerely wonder if you work at my company. I have learned much from this thread. I have often answered these surveys honestly. Never again. ---
**Author:** ![edwardcoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cab0a1/32.png) [@edwardcoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwardcoast)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/29 "2015-06-12T07:00:33Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Yesterday our new CEO had another “anonymous” survey sent out, asking " **On a scale of 1 to 10, how clear is your understanding of our new strategy from the “All Hands” call in April and various communication?"** > > The snark was strong in me at that time and I answered “Stil sounds more like corporate-speak soundbites than an actual roadmap to leverage our synergies, but I continue to look forward to the implementation of the new strategy.” Typos and all. > > This morning I come in to an email (still secure) from our CEO "How would you like to get involved in one of the ongoing projects to implement our new staretgy? Seems like,someone who could make a contribution, " > > Really. > > I suspect it is a trap, or he really thinks that ‘leveraging our synergies’ is a real thing. I have not replied yet. What do the Teeming Millions think? When management wants to make a big change, they try to identify the problem people. Then they get the problem people together, like have them form a committee with the assignment on how to implement the new way of thinking. They figure if they can get you cranky types and trouble-makers on-board, then it will make it easy to get the rest to follow. But I have to warn you, if you fail at this task and don’t 100% drink the “kool aid” you aren’t going to be around there for much longer. Management thinks highly of themselves coming up with these new ways of thinking, and if you are labeled as someone who isn’t going along with it, they want you out of there. I have seen this happen in a large corporation and they formed a committee exactly as I described it. Many appeared to fall in line with this, but private continued to mouth-off about things to their co-workers. We don’t know you, your field and your level of experience, and we certainly don’t know the company. But given what you said, I don’t think it’s a trap, but I don’t say this lightly, I don’t think you are being singled out because the CEO admires you. You mentioned it was an anonymous survey, so I considered that a violation of their own policy and instructions to identify the comment was from you. What to do. First thing I would do, is update my resume and start looking for another job the evening after I got that e-mail. Meanwhile, I would do my best to play along with this. I would reply that you are enthusiastic about being involved in this new initiative. You see, things come from the top down in management. And if they decided they are going to tell employees to look at the window and repeat the sky is blue when in reality it is overcast and raining, this is what they want the employees to do and they aren’t interested in hearing anything to the contrary. It’s a sign of bad management doing this in my opinion, and I would want out as soon as possible. I seriously doubt you are going to come out of this with more respect and trust from management. Sorry to be so cynical, but my comments come from seeing companies failing to management properly and listening to outside consults telling them how to run things. If you have see the movie Office Space, the two characters of The Bobs in that movie is an excellent parody of what I have witnessed. ---
**Author:** ![edwardcoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cab0a1/32.png) [@edwardcoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwardcoast)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/30 "2015-06-12T07:11:12Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > Nothing good ever comes from responding to employee surveys. At best, they’re a waste of your time; at worst, well, you now know from personal experience. I agree. The best thing to do, if you can’t avoid from filling them out, is to put in very generic information. Keep it short and say glowing things about everyone and everything. Why? Because they aren’t really interested in what you have to say unless it’s something bad about the management, and then they go on a witch hunt. Because really good management would bring everyone together in a meeting and discuss what’s on their mind and bounce ideas off people if they really wanted their input. I know people feel this is their chance to vent about their place of employment, but that’s what places like [Glassdoor.com](http://Glassdoor.com) are about and they are anonymous. Much more so than the company survey. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s going to help the company, co-workers and yourself. It will do none of those things. I’ve seen these surveys done, collected by the management consulting company, summarized in a report, and all the negative comments are never put into action items to correct the negative complaints. Either management gives a reply to them how they won’t do anything or explains why the situation is the way it is. ---
**Author:** ![edwardcoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cab0a1/32.png) [@edwardcoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwardcoast)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/31 "2015-06-12T07:17:27Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Which is pretty empty, even allowing for the fact that ‘leverage’ is not a verb, and doesn’t add anything to the meaning of ‘synergy’ I can see besides ‘this phrase needs a verb.’ > > I get that the concept of ‘whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ is a valid concept, but it’s a pretty useless piece of advice. > > Let’s do things where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, let’s get right on that. I agree. The comment isn’t anything tactical like “Look both ways before crossing the road”. It has to be tactical otherwise it can’t be directed and measured. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/32 "2015-06-12T10:36:02Z")
I can’t say how many times I’m happy to work at my company when I read about other companies. Sure, some things don’t change as a result of our annual survey, but a lot of things _do_ change, and we make a lot of efforts every year (starting at my level) to improve scores for the next year. The downside, though, is that without a scientific basis (although the hunch is probably correct), we attribute the lower than median scores from a particular country to the fact that we’re shutting down most operations there and there isn’t really a future for them. Although it’s probably true, there’s no effort I’ve seen to verify that it’s true. As I only participate in the improvement teams in my country (they work!), I can’t say what the improvement teams in that part of Oceana are doing, if anything. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/33 "2015-06-12T11:38:00Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > This morning I come in to an email (still secure) from our CEO "How would you like to get involved in one of the ongoing projects to implement our new staretgy? Seems like,someone who could make a contribution, " If the CEO said “staretgy” then maybe he was joking…😛 ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/34 "2015-06-12T11:54:41Z")
I am so glad I’ve never worked in a setting where I had to deal with this kinda stuff! ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/35 "2015-06-12T13:23:55Z")
> [@ratatoskK](#): > > If the CEO said “staretgy” then maybe he was joking…😛 He may like me because I also type poorly. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/36 "2015-06-12T14:02:02Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I am so glad I’ve never worked in a setting where I had to deal with this kinda stuff! Resistance is not exactly futile, but it \*is \*pretty much self-defeating. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/37 "2015-06-12T14:07:46Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Which is pretty empty, even allowing for the fact that ‘leverage’ is not a verb, and doesn’t add anything to the meaning of ‘synergy’ I can see besides ‘this phrase needs a verb.’ > > I get that the concept of ‘whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ is a valid concept, but it’s a pretty useless piece of advice. > > Let’s do things where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, let’s get right on that. Leverage our synergies means that if we own a Nuts company and we own a Gum company and all the other competitors in the market only own Nuts or Gum companies, we should put someone on a taskforce to determine whether Nuts 'n Gum would sell. If if did, we would have a product that other companies would have a hard time competing with. Think what you may of it from a culinary perspective but the Doritos Locos Taco was a _huge_ seller for Taco Bell and resulted in a lot of profit. It was the result of leveraging the synergies between Yum! Brands and PepsiCo (Yum! was spun out of PepsiCo). Similarly, the combination Taco Bell/Pizza Hut/KFC stores that rolled out in the 00’s was a result of Yum! Brands leveraging their synergies. PepsiCo owned all 3 brands for decades before but nobody had thought to leverage this insight into a new restaurant concept until they were put under the same roof by Yum!. Business language can often be bullshit but it also is a precise technical language, like any other, developed to concisely convey complex terms. Nobody sneers when software engineers say something like “High availability is orthogonal to response time under median load” even though the sentence is equally as incomprehensible to those outside the field. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/38 "2015-06-12T14:44:52Z")
> [@edwardcoast](#): > > When management wants to make a big change, they try to identify the problem people. Then they get the problem people together, like have them form a committee with the assignment on how to implement the new way of thinking. They figure if they can get you cranky types and trouble-makers on-board, then it will make it easy to get the rest to follow. But I have to warn you, if you fail at this task and don’t 100% drink the “kool aid” you aren’t going to be around there for much longer. Management thinks highly of themselves coming up with these new ways of thinking, and if you are labeled as someone who isn’t going along with it, they want you out of there. I have seen this happen in a large corporation and they formed a committee exactly as I described it. Many appeared to fall in line with this, but private continued to mouth-off about things to their co-workers… Could somebody (\*\*edward \*\*included) comment further on this paragraph? Cuz my company is initiating some massive changes never seen before in our company and (separate changes…) that are unprecedented in our industry. They’ve implemented such a committee. I’m on this committee. I volunteered myself. Did I just volunteer myself out of a job? :eek: There are massive changes that need to be made – communication is absolutely abysmal, and a recent initiative by our Marketing/Communication dept. highlights that nicely if catastrophically – and I’ve been given to understand that this committee will be part of that. What’d I get myself into? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/39 "2015-06-12T15:19:57Z")
Something complex, interesting and likely to face a lot of resistance from the current crop of employees especially if they think it’s a bullshit exercise. You can sign up and do your best to make it better, quit and find somewhere that might be better, or do nothing and enjoy nothing changing. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251/40 "2015-06-12T22:42:14Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > Learn what his alma mater is. Find out his favorite golf course and the color of his ties. Dig into his biography and see what positions he started - did he start in the mail room too? You too could be the next J. Pierpont Finch and learn [How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061791/). In addition to this I suggest changing your middle name to Pierpont - it has a certain ring to it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-ceo-is-talking-with-me/722251.md?page=3)