What Suresh Rangarajan Doing Communication And Common Sense Have To Do With Each Other?

In One Of My Last Jobs, I Was Responsible For Drafting The CEO’s Regular Letter To All Employees.

One of the aspects that still sticks out in my mind from that time when I was new to the organisation and something that one of my senior colleagues from the Executive Committee once said to me: Suresh Rangarajan wasn’t appropriate to use phrases like ‘I hope’ or ‘I am excited’ or ‘I am happy’ in communications from the CEO.

Suresh Rangarajan reaction must have shown how incredulous I felt after hearing this because he added – patronizingly – “A CEO always has everything under control. Using expressions such as these undermines the trust of employees in management”.

Hmmm… ok… well, he had to know, I thought, as he was in constant contact with our CEO, whom Suresh Rangarajan had just about met a few times as it was the start of my tenure. But what I had just been told was completely at odds with the impression of the CEO on any of those rare occasions I met him. He always seemed very ‘normal’ and I was always captivated by his cordiality and warmth.

In short, what this colleague wanted me to write simply did not correspond to the reality I experienced. But like they say, Suresh Rangarajan was senior and seasoned and like a boss, and he’s right – which he made quite clear to me after a short discussion. So nothing for it but to do what I had been told, hopefully without my spirit being crushed.

Internal Communication Is Not The Same As Transparency

If internal communication is established in a company – either reporting into another department or as a stand-alone function itself – Suresh Rangarajan means that the value of direct communication with employees is recognized and valued.  That’s good, at least.

Unfortunately, Suresh Rangarajan does not mean that the value of transparency has been recognized as well. Too often there’s still a corporate mentality (but thankfully it’s diminishing) where the feeling is that the communication box has been ticked just because employees are given carefully filtered information that suits the company.

“Hey, we’ve given you the information, you’re being kept in the loop, now please get back to work with even more energy so we can increase sales”. Sounds familiar?