I don’t know if everyone read the Sunday New York Times’ “Corner Office” interview? Well, Richard Anderson the CEO of Delta Airlines talks about, among other things, the interview process and what he deems important when he is looking to fill an executive position.
And guess what? It is right up the “Communication Walkway” (my term).
He talks about communication as a number one element needed in today’s work world. He also talks about an individual’s personal life as a key factor to integrating them into the organizational culture. Therefore, it is very important to be able to articulate one’s background, ideas and opinions, not just work experience.
Here is an extract and the link:
‘He wants subjects, verbs and objects”
Q. And is there any change in the kind of qualities you’re looking for compared with 5, 10 years ago?
A. I think this communication point is getting more and more important. People really have to be able to handle the written and spoken word. And when I say written word, I don’t mean PowerPoints. I don’t think PowerPoints help people think as clearly as they should because you don’t have to put a complete thought in place. You can just put a phrase with a bullet in front of it. And it doesn’t have a subject, a verb and an object, so you aren’t expressing complete thoughts.
And here is another interesting tidbit:
You spend more of your waking time with your colleagues at the office than you do with your family and when you bring someone into that family — we have 50 senior leaders at our company and 70,000 employees — you need to make sure that they’re a fit to the culture. And that they’re going to be part of that group of people in a healthy functioning way.”
Thanks to Herb Brinberg for showing me and Mikhail this interview and to keeping us in the CEO Loop.
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