Bad Ideas Executed Badly

Here is an example. In 2009, a large company (name withheld intentionally) was preparing for an annual sales meeting. They were spending millions of dollars to bring people in from all over the world and to tell the story of One Company Vision (no, it was not Ford Motors). It is a good story. It is an even better story when it is told with living examples that stand up at every level of the organization. Management knew how important this meeting was, but for some reason, they were not connected to the internal communications group in the way they should have been. Internal communications was seen, as it often is, as an order taker—a pizza-and-marcom delivery service.

The chief executive officer (CEO) had meetings with ...

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