CEO challenge
Leaders of great companies spend a lot of time working on the recruitment and retention of great people because they understand winning the talent war is key to success.
During a regular executive meeting to discuss people resources, the CEO of a mid-sized company asked her team to assess the current talent pool.
Together, they identified three managers out of the 30 they had on staff as good, but not great. If the company was going to thrive in a dismal economy, changes would be necessary.
The decision was made to find high calibre replacements within the next 90 days. The team discussed a transition plan that included letting the three under-performers go within two weeks.
Unfortunately, someone on the team did not treat the meeting as confidential. Word got out and rumours began to spread that the company was downsizing.
CEO mistake
The CEO held an emergency meeting with her direct reports to discuss confidentiality. Tensions ran high at the executive table as she expressed significant frustration and disappointment with her team. No one admitted to sharing the confidential information, which only made the issue of trust more pronounced.
In exasperation, the CEO told her team that she could no longer fully trust them given that important matters could not be kept under wraps. Leaving the meeting, she wondered if she could trust anyone at the table, and whether she even had the right talent at the executive level.
CEO solution
While the breach of confidentiality was disappointing, the CEO needed to take a hard look at her own behaviour both before and after the incident.
In hindsight, she should have kicked off the resource planning session by clarifying expectations.
If you are going to discuss sensitive information, be sure to remind the team that everything discussed at the meeting needs to be held in confidence.
Secondly, don’t make assumptions that everyone will adhere to a general reminder. Head nodding isn’t agreement.
Instead, ask each person one at a time at the meeting to make sure that they will commit to treating the discussion as confidential. Making that one-to-one connection improves resolve.
It’s also important not to take things personally. The disclosure may have been innocent and most likely was not intended to undermine the CEO or her efforts.
Everyone makes mistakes; getting upset and accusing people of destroying trust isn’t going to help matters.
Instead, treat the incident as a team learning experience. If someone admits to leaking the information, discuss it openly and objectively with an eye to coaching everyone on how even minor revelations can fuel the rumour mill and create problems.
Finally, make sure you hold people accountable. If there is a leak, meet with each person individually to reiterate the need for confidentiality and encourage whoever is responsible to come clean.
When the guilty party does come forward, make sure he or she apologizes to the team, and then let it go. Only then can you hope to build a culture of confidentiality. •
