Mike Myatt is Chief Strategy Officer of N2Growth, a business that deals with branding, coaching, leadership management and more. Mike was also kind enough to buy many copies of Trust Agents, which made me wonder: what kind of a guy buys a ton of books to help a guy out, without wanting me to go and speak at some event or something? Mike just wanted to see things go well with our launch, and for that, I’m grateful.
I asked Mike some questions about his business and where he sees all this going. Here’s our interview:
You help coach CEOs on leadership and related issues, and you’re getting more into the social space. How are CEOs interacting with you about social media right now? What are they most curious or concerned about?
Great question…“concerned†and “curious†were very intuitive, and accurate choices in verbiage to use in framing your question. My experience has been that most CEOs already recognize the need for their organizations to be engaged in social media, However in most cases, they still see SM as something for others in the enterprise to deal with. With regard to corporate social media agendas, CEOs are very interested in using SM to extend their brand, to gather intelligence, to manage risk, and to create new revenue channels. They are reaching out to us in a fairly aggressive fashion corporately, with virtually all of our clients being engaged with some form of social media at the corporate level.
At the personal level, the concerns of CEOs are still regrettably outweighing their personal curiosity at this point. As aggressively as they’re seeking advice and counsel on corporate initiatives, their comfort zone preferences tend to have them shying away from high profile personal involvement. Presently we only have about a dozen CEOs actively engaged in consistent personal social media initiatives. The good news is that they are becoming increasingly more receptive to our message which has been loud, clear and very persistent…leadership is not a spectator sport…leadership is about trust, listening, innovation, commitment, collaboration, participation, and active engagement. These truths also hold true with regard to social media. By this time next year we’ll likely have more than 50 prominent CEOs actively engaged in social media at a personal level.
What kinds of advice do you give to CEOs with regards to this new space?
Aside from the obvious benefits (gathering intelligence, engaging stakeholders, building brand equity, more effectively avoiding and dealing with a crisis, increasing loyalty, creating revenue, etc.), the big opportunity is that a first movers advantage still exists for CEOs in SM. While there are numerous examples of entrepreneurial CEOs that already have a social media presence, the numbers of prominent CEOs who have an active and meaningful SM presence still number among the few.
For those willing to move forward, social media affords CEOs the opportunity to extend trust and expand influence by establishing a highly visible personal brand. Rather than being just another mistrusted “suit†sequestered away in the corner office, SM gives a CEO the opportunity to engender trust and confidence through genuine public interaction in a way that can meaningfully reach more people than is possible through any other medium. Our goal is to mitigate the damage of existing misinformation and negative stereotypes by helping CEOs to become more trusted and approachable. CEOs who desire to create a larger sphere of influence (both internally and externally), simply cannot afford to sit this one out. My advice? Get engaged, and get engaged now.
Has social media changed the leadership equation any?
Absolutely…it wasn’t so long ago that CEOs were really only accountable to their board and their shareholders. Now CEOs are answerable to an extended base of constituents that can include among others, very loud, passionate, and sometimes hostile groups of employees, bloggers, anonymous citizen journalists, the media, whistle blowers, and virtually anyone else who has an opinion. Leaders in today’s world must meet people where they are, they must deal with them in a relevant fashion, and they must do it quickly. The window of opportunity for leaders to embrace social media is rapidly closing…It won’t be long now before CEOs not engaged in social media will be looked at as dinosaurs not worthy of the title they hold. Some would say we have already reached this point.
What about the Millennial generation? I’ve seen a lot and had panels with Millennials that suggest that leadership has to change now that this new generation has come about? What’s your advice on that?
Most estimates already have Gen Y outnumbering Baby Boomers, and those that don’t, have them overtaking Baby Boomers in 2010. The size of this market makes Millennials a huge and rapidly growing base of both consumption and talent. Leaders who fail to communicate effectively with Gen Y will see market share erode, revenue decline, and the talent pool shrink. Put simply, Millennials are not just the future of a CEOs talent pool and market, they are a much larger part of the present landscape than many leaders care to admit.
When you couple the aforementioned observations with reports that more than 95% of Millennials have already joined at least one social network, it becomes evident that leaders who don’t embrace the culture of Gen Y will be left on the outside looking in. Any good leader understands that fluid, evolving markets require constant innovation and adoption of relevant messaging. Leaders who hope to survive will need to get in touch with their younger self.
Which technologies are you advocating that leaders pay attention to, and which ones are you keeping them away from?
In general, I’m not a big believer in one size fits all advice. What works for one CEO may be completely inappropriate for another given their personality, market, stage of corporate lifecycle, etc. While CEOs need to be engaged and visible, they need to do so in an appropriate fashion. Rather than trying to be all things to all people we help them develop a social media strategy that is in alignment with their corporate objectives, addresses their key constituencies, and is relevant to their individual circumstances.
Finally, how have social media tools improved your platform to find success with what you’re doing?
I’m a big believer in eating my own cooking. I simply couldn’t advise CEOs to engage in something that I haven’t had a positive personal and corporate experience with. Chris Brogan I’m not, but I have been blogging since 2005, have a solid following on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networks, have used video effectively, and have been webcasting regularly for a few years now. Bottom line, social media is solidly integrated into our business model from both a leadership and branding perspective. At this point, we view social media as our primary communication channel both internally and externally.
For more information on Mike Myatt, check out his website at N2Growth.com, and also visit his blog. You can also follow @mikemyatt on Twitter.