When Your Business Is Failing and You Blame Everyone Else (Insider Comms™ From Business Insider)

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You can tell when an all-employee memo was sent without the input of a seasoned comms team.

Nicholas Carlson, editor-in-chief of Insider, recently fired off a gloom-and-doom note to staff warning of a “perfect storm trying to sink us.”

• I’ve never re-read a memo so many times and been so fascinated and so bewildered.

Carlson’s memo swings wildly from blaming competition for the media company’s poor performance to lamenting the fact that Trump not being in office means fewer people are interested in the news to teasing how the company will deploy artificial intelligence in the newsroom.

• A wise comms pro could probably advise Carlson that maybe it’s not free market competition that’s sinking our ship, but rather the business model.

• Maybe instead of blaming our downfall on the Wall Street Journal being so good at what they do and Facebook for changing their algorithm we should, um, maybe build a business of developing original, groundbreaking, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism that’s so good readers can’t ignore us. 🤷

• But who are comms pros to have opinions on business strategy? 😉

I share Carlson’s memo as an example of what bad exec comms looks like.

• To be sure, employees appreciate messages that are in the exec’s voice and don’t sound like they’ve been written by a committee of comms pros and members of the HR, IR, and Legal teams.

• But Carlson’s note is inconsistent, lacks clarity and data to back up claims, has no specifics on how to right the ship, is devoid of vision, and—weirdly—is simultaneously too apologetic and too defiant.

Compare Carlson’s memo to that of other companies facing hardship:

• Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel had to write two memos in June and September last year explaining that the company had to make difficult decisions—including layoffs—because the company was underperforming.

• Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy’s first note to employees after taking the helm at the beleaguered fitness company acknowledged tough times and laid out a 10-point management philosophy he’d follow to get the company back on track.

• Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tried to have it both ways in his rah-rah note to employees explaining difficult economic conditions and what the company needed to do to weather the storm.

• And compare Carlson’s note to another example of how not to communicate clearly: Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke tried to re-establish a cultural norm, but the message was muddled and, ultimately, was not very motivating.

These memos ☝️, Carlson’s memo 👇, and all Insider Comms are available to Mister Editorial’s paid members.

Here’s Carlson’s message: