Breaking Corporate Video Barriers: Becoming a Suit with a Soul
When people hear titles like CEO or president, the words conjure up some “suit” sitting in a corner suite on the top floor of a skyscraper.
Video is one of the best ways to convey to the majority of employees that there’s a real beating heart under the Brooks Brothers blazer. Video can reach any number of people, anywhere, at any time, while allowing the speaker to show his or her humanity.
It’s multichannel, cross-border, cross-cultural.
Video communications establish trust with employees
When leaders unpack their content on camera, their message is simply the freight on the train. In order for the freight (or content) to resonate, the public must know that the conductor is for real. Is this someone they’d trust to transport their entire enterprise through adversity and into the future? Do they care about people or only profits? Does a heart beat beneath the suit?
A few years ago, Tribe did a series of employee profiles with KPMG. Sean, a Market Development Manager, shares his journey through the company. But what separates him from any other guy in a suit is his openness with the camera. He shares moments of weakness and insecurity that ultimately led to the great opportunities he found at KPMG.
Break down barriers of time and place with video
Exposing vulnerabilities to establish your humanity requires introspection and risk taking. There’s no evolutionary imperative for us as a species to perform on camera.
To make the the task even more challenging, leaders today need to project themselves to an increasingly complex world. It’s not only a on a face-to-face basis, but it’s multichannel, cross-border, cross-cultural.
Video has the power to send an emotional, humanizing message across the world, any time of day. No other medium accomplishes so much in so little time.
Humanize and clarify without a complicated delivery
A producer friend of mine, Jim Tusty, once pointed out that oftentimes, companies seem to think that if a CEO explains his vision clearly to his top-level leaders, those leaders will communicate the exact same message to those below them.
When that false assumption is made, the unintentional miscommunication becomes a game of telephone. The message being spread becomes less similar to the original with each interaction.
Control of the message is one of the main benefits when CEOs communicate directly with everyone on the ladder. Not only does this allow you to you preserve the accuracy of your message. In delivering it yourself, you remind everyone that you’re human, and just like everybody else.