The giant gap in understanding between leaders and social
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I often talk about how there are fundamental “gaps in understanding” when it comes to social media in large corporations. There are many of these gaps, and they all lead to blind spots of different kinds. While I generally focus on the gap in understanding between the social media team/comms/marketing and IT/cybersecurity/compliance, there’s another equally significant gap that is rarely discussed: the gap between top leadership and social.
I understand. Your company’s top executives are very busy people. Their time is worth a lot of money. Social media is not their top priority. None of that is unexpected or bad. But corporations need to understand that this creates a very large gap in understanding that rears its ugly head when these executives do decide to give social media a minute of their time.
Social media professionals both crave and dread attention from the C-suite. On one hand, it’s great to get any face time we can with them. On the other hand, top execs tend to pose – sorry, not sorry – really dumb questions.
It often reminds me of watching Congress interview Mark Zuckerberg. Yes, Senator, the internet is made of a series of tubes.
C-suite execs tend to pepper social media teams with questions that clearly indicate:
They don’t understand how social media works fundamentally (what it can do, what it can’t do, basic definitions and understanding of “how it works”)
They have not spent a millisecond even thinking about the strategy underlying what the company is doing on social (a lot of executives are surprised to learn that social strategy is even a thing)
They do not understand the company’s social media footprint
They don’t know who does what on the team or even who is on the team
Sadly, this isn’t limited to the C-suite. Even within the comms or marketing family, it’s very common for department leaders to treat the social media team like they’re on an island – it’s like a weird corporate comms version of don’t ask don’t tell. Pulling from my own experience in corporate, I once had a 12-month period in which I had four different supervisors, and only ONE of them ever asked me to explain what my team did.
Leaders also tend to ask really arbitrary questions. I think this is because they are often asking a question because someone else asked them the question. For instance:
Why aren’t we on (fill in the blank social media platform)?
Why haven’t we responded to this one very specific comment that I happened to see today?
Why don’t we post more?
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It always reminds me of my favorite scene from “The Day After Tomorrow.” If you’ve never seen it, Dennis Quaid plays a climatologist who is a key government advisor and one of the first people in the world to know the Earth is about to undergo a massive climate reset and enter a new ice age. He also has to mount a rescue mission to save his son who is trapped in Manhattan. During the movie, Quaid’s character is briefing the president, vice president and a bunch of other high-ranking officials. He takes a marker and draws a line across the United States, roughly dividing it into the northern states and southern states. He then tells the country’s top government officials that it’s “too late” for the people in the north.
This scene makes me laugh every time I see it because the line is SO arbitrary. He draws it freehand. It wiggles and wobbles as it goes across the map. It’s not based on any science that is revealed in the movie. It’s like Dennis Quaid waves his magic wand and says, “here’s a magic line, anyone above it is doomed.”
This is what executives and leaders do to social teams all the time. They come into the room, grab a marker and draw a totally arbitrary line. And then they expect the social team to do something about it. They ask this without knowing anything about whether the team can physically do anything about it, or whether it’s a good idea strategically.
Companies that maintain this dynamic and don’t address the gap in understanding remain stuck in place for years. There is no way to bridge the gap without your leaders putting some skin in the game and investing some time in understanding social.
If you are fortunate enough to be in a leadership position, avoid drawing those arbitrary lines and asking those arbitrary questions. Instead ask questions like these:
Can you sit down with me and give me an overview of social at this company?
Can you walk me through our strategy?
What do you need to do this better?
How can I help?
And my very favorite leadership question, Say More?
Those conversations will be much more fruitful and will lead to real progress instead of putting out dumpster fires. You might also learn something along the way.