CEOs have to speak all the time. But what do they say?
The things CEOs talk about in their Town Halls, All Hands or AGM speeches change from year to year and from quarter to quarter. CEOs routinely talk reflectively about the last 12 months, what’s on their desk at the moment and their vision and strategy for the next 12 to 36 months. These topics inevitably change based on internal and external factors.
Attracting, engaging and retaining talent is a recurring theme for CEOs
Over the last three decades, I have worked with business leaders in Europe, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and they routinely speak about the same four things.
- attracting, engaging and retaining talented people
- their external environment
- the particular circumstances within the business
- things happening within the industry
External themes that CEOs talk about
This interesting data about what 5800 US-based CEOs talk about on a quarterly basis has been brilliantly graphically displayed by the amazing team at IOT Analytics. It is fascinating to see how the emphasis has changed over the last four years. There are graphics like the one above for every quarter going back four years or perhaps even longer.
Some themes have waxed and waned in urgency and importance and volume over the last few years. Some are new entries, some are emerging and dominating – perhaps permanently, some are COVID related and will hopefully become historical.
The list is wide-ranging, as you would expect from someone who is expected to be the Chief Everything Officer when they speak at Town Halls or All Hands. But what a list it is: the labour market, shortages, Cloud, inflation, process automation, raw materials, hybrid work, supply chain, artificial reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), industrial IoT, layoffs, stock market, recession, supply chains, sustainability, digital transformation, energy chip shortages, recruiting, private networks, automation, vaccine mandates, the war for talent, work from home, cyber security, sustainability, COVID-19, connectivity, Bitcoin, Blockchain, semiconductor and AI.
I bet you can’t read that last sentence out loud with one breath! It is NOT the sort of sentence I would write or expect anyone to use in a speech – except when making a point about long sentences.
How I help business leaders prepare for speeches and presentations
Business leaders are short on time. But words are their tools, and they need to make the most of their speaking engagements and the interactions with all their various “stakeholders” – their immediate and wider team, potential team members, analysts, owners and shareholders, the Board and all the other people that they have to persuade to come on board or stay on board.
You can’t just outsource a speech and expect a good or compelling text – let alone a commanding delivery. I help business leaders with both – what they say and how they say it – their delivery. I invest time in understanding where they are, what they are trying to achieve, the pain and pressure points are and where they’re trying to be.
I also need to get under the skin of the CEO of the business, understanding the people within the business and the various audiences that the CEO is addressing. You can’t write a (good) speech for somebody in a vacuum.
If you are a business leader who could do with some help in preparing what you say and then how you say it (the delivery) at important business meetings or events, please do get in touch and let’s see if we click and get each other.