#11 To C or Not to C

Peter Theil starts the book Zero to One with his favorite interview question: 

"What important truth do very few people agree with you on?"  

It’s intellectually hard, he says, because most of us were raised with the same general ideas of truth. And it’s psychologically hard, because now you have to say something you know isn’t popular.

(And why is it such a good interview question? "Brilliant thinking is rare" he says, "but courage is in even shorter supply..")

So, think about it, if you have a minute: What’s an important truth that very few people agree with you on? 

I'm going to tell you mine, and I apologize in advance if you find the next few paragraphs tasteless.

Simply put, I think we need more empathy for CEOs. And specifically, I believe the communications industry’s greatest failure in the last 20 years has been to avoid creating it. 

Here's a story: one of my clients lost his wife suddenly (car accident) a few weeks after the sale of his company, a 9-figure exit. Not long after that, at coffee with one of our mutual connections, the connection said, "Jeff will be fine, he can cry himself to sleep on his giant bed of money."  

Now, I’ve heard (or even helped write) a few shocking things in my career, but this stunned even me. It still feels icky just to type it to you. 

The story confirms a law of nature I wrote in my earliest days working for C-Somethings: the more money or power that anyone has, the less empathy they will get from anyone else. 

As a practical matter, this law helps comms people remember if an audience really is a sympathetic one (it isn’t).

But there’s something much bigger here, which is my heretic idea and answer to Theil's question.

The CEO role (and your role, and any founder’s or leader’s) is mostly a myth to other people, or really, a projection. People think about the CEO they way they do lottery winners: not much deeper than fantasy for what they’d do in your shoes.

And they have exactly zero curiosity about the reality of it.

Here’s one example: in twenty years of helping lay off thousands of workers, I’ve never once heard anyone wonder how shitty the CEO must have felt doing it.

(I warned you, this is unpopular.)

So I’ll tell you something about the CEO job that some CEOs know: it sucks.  

Responsibilities, liabilities, and the demands on your time are outrageous. Bad things constantly happen because human beings are practically defined by being imperfect, and leaders are defined as being responsible for large groups of them. (Employees, consumers, press, vendors, shareholders, regulators: all humans!)

So it sucks. But another thing about the job? It’s awesome! 

You can build really big things for the world before you leave it and play an outsized role in the lives of employees, customers, and more. You can meet interesting people, have access to more ideas, and solve truly challenging and unique problems.  

There’s a popular German story of "the banker and the fisherman," and what’s interesting about it is plenty of people would prefer to be the fisherman while another group reads it and still wants to be the banker. To me, that’s just proof we all have an option be happy, fishing or banking.  

Meanwhile, I know quite a few successful C-somethings who have no idea how to be happy. They should be fishing! They’re unhappy because they have no idea WHY they're banking.

(There are some people out there who are so damned poor all they have is their money.)

So I think if the world had a more realistic view—the good and bad—of CEO’ing, or leadership in general, we'd have a different social and capital landscape.

1. If people really knew what they were getting into, quite a few half-asses and grifters would wisely self-select out. Not all, but some.

2. Conversely, not all but some less-idealistic people might self-select into a reality that suits their grit or goal to make a difference.

Both of these seem likely to give our economy a superior class of CEOs, as well as a happier class of them which, frankly, all of you deserve to be.

And finally, it might not please every pessimist, but it would probably help a lot more people see the true wealth in catching fish. (There’s no such thing as happiness without gratitude).

At the very least, a clearer view of leadership could reduce misplaced resentment. Because RESENTMENT–whether it's between cofounders, married partners, or total strangers–may be the deadliest emotion of all.

Which is specifically and heartbreakingly evident in the case of Brian Thompson's murder.

(Also, why do I blame my profession for this problem? Because CEO's, as a class, have an almost 100% rate of hiring communicators. Sooooo, here's another way to think about that.)

But lets talk tactics now. What does all of this mean for you, C-Something?

Everything I’ve just written above is positively heretic. Pure fantasy, and offensive to reality. 

The truth, as I said in my own law of nature, is no one cares about you. 

In fact, you aren't even you! You’re really more of an idea or a symbol, which sucks but hey that’s the reality of the job. So if you truly want anyone to care about you, you're going to have to do it yourself. 

Which brings us to my second-most heretic idea (or just an extension of the other one): you first.

Publera's time-tested approach to executive comms is to divide all of your strategy, architecture, and messaging into a framework of exactly three constituencies: you, your people, and other people. 

I started doing this because it worries me other people don't.

Viewing it that way helps you see your priorities better and avoid some pretty stupid (and common) PR mistakes. Biggest reveal? Once you adopt this framework you'll notice your comms team is prioritizing other people first.

The general public, reporters, inbound media, etc. 

Yet here you are, a leader. A driver. There's something you're trying to build or achieve. And there is exactly one way you'll achieve anything in this world, ever: your people. 

That means your employees, your customers, your investors. It's anyone who already has a stake in you. These people, your people, matter SO much more to achieving your goals than some stranger in Cincinnati named Susan. I cannot stress this enough. 

And finally, if you've built something that matters, then it matters more than you. It matters to all of your people, and all of it depends on you. 

So get your beauty rest. Choose privacy and private security. And if you don't like Slack then don't use it, and don't let your people. You first.  Sorry Susan. 

You and yours truly,
Jesse

PS: Zero to One is one of the 5 books I recommend founders and leaders re-read every few years. As promised, I did finally publish that list for you. I also recommend the physical versions of these books, since it makes them easier to reference. (Although it’s nice to have them in your Audible account too 🤷🏻‍♂️.)

One reason I think we should re-read some books every few years is we're in different situations. So we get new insights for the newest us. But more importantly, to be on the re-read list I think a book has to contain more wisdom than is actually there on the page. Instead, the wisdom is in your head, and you just have to work a few years to get 100% of it.

PSS: Last possible chance to order from my little hobby project before the holiday. There are just a few left. It's been humbling and thrilling to see them go out and imagine them in your hands, I hope you find joy in cooking like I do.

PSSS: What's the over/under on how long before this week's issue gets me cancelled? You can affect those odds by sharing it with more people!  (Plus, your C-something friends will need something long and distracting to read on Christmas and New Years when I will definitely be in your inbox because those are also Wednesdays.)