Hello, please let it work.
At this point, it’s hard to know what to say in a week to know what to say. Where/when will the attack on Dei end? And what can we certainly say, except that we have to preserve human values when it comes to generative AI? Please let us know who has a definitive scoop on any of these topics, or who has a tarot crystal ball 🔮/side hustle (Bloomberg only did a fun article about the popularity of these cards on Gen Z).
Read expert tips for business leaders who are advantageous for videos that want to start recording short clips 🎥. And in office therapy, we hear from British civil servants who were surprised by the prospect of employment cuts.
PS: My colleague Bethan Staton writes it over the next two weeks. Next week, I will chair the Business and Workplace Panel in Cornwall’s Humanity. If you’re there, say hello.
The rise of CEOs as social media stars⭐
You don’t have to be the creator of 22-year-old Tiktok to go viral. As more social platforms begin to embrace videos, this content is often prioritized and seen by more people*. On LinkedIn, some senior business leaders use videos to build big followers. You can feel this trend from pioneers such as Daniel Ek of Spotify, Alex Mahon of Channel 4, and Jon Gray, president and chief operating officer of Blackstone (who likes to record ideas while running in beautiful places).
To get some beginner tips, I spoke to Chief Operating Officer Dan Shapero (obviously in the video) one of LinkedIn’s own stars. Dan often filmed himself walking around his California neighborhood, beginning with a short personal clip of the pandemic. “I walked back from my school (my daughter’s) back to my house and people really responded to it.
Currently, Dan posts from his business-related global travel to topics such as LinkedIn financial results, advances in AI, and meditations on walks near his home. How does he prepare? “I usually find the important message I want to say, and I might choose a catchphrase like some words I just want to make sure I’m right. But beyond that, I’m really doing it from the basic structure of my mind. It’s not scripted.
CEOs need to carefully create communication, usually with writers at hand to shape the message and “thinking leadership” 👀 (closing himself for horrifying words). Physically, bosses are generally hidden behind layers of assistants and senior executives, from staff and public places. Leaders who record something improvisation as they wander along the streets are very far from carefully curated communication strategies. And it will probably send the Comms team to Tailspin🤯.
advantage? As Dan says, “There’s something about hearing your voice, building trust, and seeing your face that creates credibility, and your leaders are drawn to it.”
What should the leader talk about? “You just have to think about what you shared with your team at a recent team meeting and then put it in a video and share it on the platform. I think people will really respond. And the other thing I suggest is, when people comment, and even when people don’t agree with you, it’s a great place to encourage conversations.
When leaders shared their enthusiasm with their FT colleagues about the idea of all-in on video, they were worried about the future where CEOs could have to become video stars as part of the job specification. There are great leaders out there who don’t have the desire to put themselves in front of the camera. It is a shallow indicator for determining CEOs when they have enormous financial liability.
That’s a good point, but reaching personally with audiences who now trust people and institutions in premiums and are also staff and customers seems like a sweet spot for leaders who can do it well. As Dan says, ever since he started recording videos, he has been involved in “they’re different from me (in Linkedin offices all over the world). They’re getting a little closer. They open up a little more to me. They tell me how they know me.”
I’d love to hear about other leaders who created big video followers. . . interesting? Share the best here: isabel.berwick@ft.com.
*QED: My best performance LinkedIn post was a one-take video shot (155,000 views) in the FT bathroom when I was low.
Office Therapy
Problem: I am a public sector worker, like the civil servants and the NHS who are reading about cutting the workforce and I am worried. What can you do to prepare yourself in case you lose your job?
Isabel’s advice: You are not alone with this. We hear similar concerns from all kinds of people. Your initial feelings will probably be anger and helplessness. You are a human, and this is a threat to your survival (or your body and mind think about it). All this is out of your control and it’s important to remember.
We went to the experts of Jonathan Black, Director of Career Services at Oxford University, and gave us some practical advice for you. “We focus on your skills, experiences, contacts, know-how and how to respond to threatened changes,” Jonathan said. “We can build your resume while you wait for x to fall. We will focus on your accomplishments and responsibilities.
“You start writing a list of people to stay in touch, and perhaps you start a coffee meeting. You might also be sure that this forced change is just a push that needs to be changed. You’ll join a new organization or go to a new region or country.”
Are there any issues or dilemmas for office therapy? Please email isabel.berwick@ft.com. It anonymizes everything appropriately.
US Workplace Insights: How to Use Conferences. . . Actual work 👏🏼
This week, people learned that they are beginning to use meeting time to not only share updates on what they are doing, but also to generate more work. This insight comes from Kevin Delaney, editor-in-chief of Charter, the future of work media and research firms.
He cites examples of a team writing technical white papers at the materials science company Dow. They schedule meetings, discuss topics in the upcoming white paper, and give AI tools to create the first draft of the paper. This approach eliminates many before and after in the early stages.
Kevin’s team at Charter decided to give this idea a try. They gave AI tools a transcript of kickoff meetings that they discussed the goals and formats of future meetings and asked them to create an agenda for the day. “It wasn’t perfect,” says Kevin, “but it gave us a very good starting point and some ideas we might not have.”
I love this. Other examples are welcome.
Five Top Stories from the World of Work
AI Chatbots that Provide Workplace Advice: Emma Jacobs offers an engaging and comprehensive overview of the fast-growing sector, the world of AI-based workplace coaching. Democratization or danger?
How to Find People with Low Performance: The FT Leader’s smash hit, Pirita Clark’s column outlines performance review issues and a wide range of issues when assessing a person’s worth to an employer. There’s also a wild comment section.
Nuclear Power Plant boss Julia Pike: “Developing a big infrastructure project in the UK is a tough gig”: The fascinating insights from Anjli Raval and Rachel Millard are like in a collaborative run with a planned nuclear project that seeks to balance competing stakeholders with anti-nuclear campaigns.
Doge’s “Villain Fantasy” is wrong about public services. Simon Cooper takes on the common US story of civil servants being useless and spending fraud. As he shows, people enter it for the public good.
Has Goldman Sachs already chosen the next CEO? There is a lot of additional information about the “almost” CEOs of this and other banks, Joshua Franklin has taken a deep dive where he is happy with Goldman’s succession saga.
One more thing. . .
Hedge funds have paid up to $1 million to hire weather professionals. Yes, you read it correctly – commodity trading is heavily affected by the weather. And where there is economic benefits, there is work. After Donald Trump’s government destroys government agencies in the US, there could be more weather scientists looking for jobs, and hedge funds are being hired – excellent pay. A story from Bloomberg (🎁Link.)
Words from the working IT community
When poet Craig Lane responded to last week’s “Poetry in Poetry” newsletter, I was hit by a star.
“The classic case is John Stuart Mill. “The Crisis of My Mind History,” chapter 5 of his autobiography (1874): “It was not merely an external beauty, but a state of emotion, a state of thought colored by emotions. It was entirely born of my habitual depression, and never again exposed to it.”
Thank you Craig – and to everyone else who wrote it.
Before logging off…
Sophie Heawwood is a great writer and interviewer, so I was happy to see Substack’s Sophist Newsletter. Not only is it as interesting as I would expect, it’s also an honest reflection on the difficult, bittersweet business of raising teenagers. Bonus: Sophie also writes a comfortable voyeuristic property newsletter. RightMove’s Roundup🏠 is perfect for those who need a break from emails and messaging😥 in time.
