Obama makes a point. AP Photo/Brian Snyder, Pool
President Obama’s address and suggested lesson plans to the nation’s school children the day after Labor Day has created a wave of controversy. The unprecedented presidential event is being billed as a pep talk to encourage children to study hard and stay in school. Parents are upset with many afraid the speech will be political propaganda. Their fears are fueled by the lack of an advanced text of the speech, which is extremely unusual.
Let’s consider this business scenario. The CEO announces he will be broadcasting a message to the company’s hourly employees to encourage them to work hard and to stay with the company as it works to prepare itself for future competitive challenges.
The meeting is scheduled during a time when managers are attending a seminar, so they will not be able to attend. They ask for some advanced information about the talk so they will not be left out of the loop. However the CEO does not provide any advanced information about what will be said aside from the general topic already announced.
The managers begin to talk among themselves because they are concerned the CEO may say things contradictory to what they have previously said in their daily contact with their employees. They also fear the specifics of the message will create questions the managers will have to answer without the advantage of knowing what was really said and what the employees have misinterpreted.
The managers begin to think about the lost productivity during the address. Being scheduled at the same time across all facilities, there will undoubtedly be an interruption in the normal operations of the company. Also some of the employees do not like the CEO because managers have spoken disparagingly about him. Others will hear the message, the manager’s fear, and not take the positive aspect of working hard to heart because the CEO does not understand their specific world and paradigm. These employees could discredit the message and create a peer pressure syndrome that could further disrupt the workday or weeks to come.
Obviously this situation would not occur in the business world due to chain of commands and protocol -- that are a part of effective business communication. This hypothetical situation is very comparable to what is actually happening with the school address.
To be effective, the CEO in our fictitious example would need to inform the managers of the key points and deliver the message when managers and employees could discuss the CEO’s message. This protocol emphasizes the need to get the message out and to increase the employee buy-in to the vision.
Comments
what was the point of that?? To compare the two things is ridiculous as it is, but I read along looking for a point. Yes, there has been a silly amount of controversy around this upcoming speech. If parents are "concerned" about this as much as the right wing says they are then they could simply not tune in. I'm too young to know how the media handled it, but was there as much of an uproar over the Reagan administration talking to our kids about drugs? Nancy Reagan chose to speak to our children about using drugs, Obama has chosen Education. Two pretty important things. Again, I have no idea what the media's reaction was to JUST SAY NO, but I can tell ya I never touched anything because of that campaign... If a speech by our president can get just one kid to stay in school, then what's the harm?
he is not trying to run kmart, he's trying to inspire children to stay in school. Your business example has no parallel logic, where the managers, be they the children or parent, would all be employees of the CEO. This is not the case here, the CEO/President is the employee of the mangers/children or parent. Obama works for us.
dj, there's a difference between the pres and 1st lady. Nancy did not ask or demand schools to give her time to campaign against drugs. The rpogram was successful because did not force the message on teachers and schools. Instead she used her position as a pulpit others could rally around.
This analogy is reaaaaally a stretch. I also wonder if the writer has ever actually worked in a company. CEOs typically don't ask for management's approval and employee "buy-in" to deliver a speech. In fact, if you were to use this writer's analogy to compare managers with school districts who are taking it upon themselves to make our President's speech "optional," any manager who told their departmental employees that they could "opt out" of the CEO's speech would be promptly fired.
Just another example of how your democratically-elected government works a little bit differently than the average corporation!
There is too much read into this article as is most things today.The correlation in the article may not be the best way to express the fact that Obama in many of his actions causes people to become anxious and maybe fearful, with cause or not. Whatever his intent why not divulge the content of the agenda. What can it hurt?
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