The Limit: Lessons learned from a high altitude encounter with large enterprise “leadership.”

When an enterprise meets its end, it is rarely with celebration or fanfare unless it’s acquired in a successful exit or IPO. And if there is a press release or announcement of some kind, it’s almost always taken out with Friday’s trash.

Occasionally, certain organizations or enterprises meet their end because the mission no longer has sufficient value to members or stakeholders, at which point there is no shame in stating as much, putting it to bed and pointing stakeholders or subscribers to other relevant resources.

Unfortunately, some enterprises meet their end because the parent organization does not understand how its “domain” works and is no longer interested in supporting its cause and why.

Recently, the institutional and fiduciarily responsible party for one enterprise, well known in its ecosystem, decided to effectively end its existence. I contributed to a “closing statement” in the interest of awareness for the event and the next endeavors of its team among its curated channels and ecosystem. 

As expected, and after close collaboration with the most directly affected departments, the missive reached the highest responsible office in the parent enterprise. The revised “statement” (shared among stakeholders late on a Friday in mid-December) that the office returned was tantamount to graywashing. In its heavily revised draft form, it was disingenuous, inauthentic to the department of subject and would have been a betrayal of the carefully built and nurtured trust the department had engendered in its channels and ecosystem.

Because that is what I believed, I quickly entered very thin air from which I could not retreat without making some reply that would not burn an important bridge or cause me to suffer some form of professional edema from which I might not recover. It was like having to abandon a high elevation climb with little to no bottled oxygen. I had to retreat, but it was not going to be easy or without risk. I consulted another expert, made a draft email reply, slept on it, made a few changes, pressed send and started to sweat.

Here’s what I sent.

I appreciate that we are navigating between the fine lines of multiple stakeholders as well as positivity versus the closure of an important entity to the medtech innovation ecosystem.

In order to best understand and incorporate your draft / feedback, I would ask for the Y's office or its representative to state any approved portions of the current draft on which the team has been collaborating as well as approved timing if any or none. Until then, I will take no action in terms of distributing any content through the X channels.

If only the statement “X Communication Dec ZZ, 2024” … is available for consideration by X for distribution through its channels, it is my opinion that the Office of the Y issue the release as written from Friday afternoon on its letterhead and through its channels at a time of its choosing as the revised statement no longer carries the messages nor sentiment I believe are authentic for X to share with their carefully curated, highly familiar community at this time.

Sincerely,

Here’s the reply from on high.

Hi all:

Please pause on any communication regarding X.  The draft I reviewed does not accurately reflect our current situation, and decisions are still being made.  Please include … me in any discussions around X’s future.

Thanks!

Y office 

The lessons learned

While I have doubts about the Y office’s three sentence statement or reply above, I successfully descended to a safe altitude with plenty of oxygen having learned the following:

1. The parent enterprise did not want my input, nor did it want to be “saved from itself” with respect to the ecosystem’s perception of it. They were not my client, but they were responsible for them and remain responsible for departments I would like to retain the opportunity to work. I had reached the limit and could go no farther … at least any farther that would have accomplished anything beyond my own immediate gratification.
   

2. Consulting an expert with a minimum measure of distance from a sensitive situation was invaluable and most certainly contributed to a (minimally) positive outcome.
   

3. Playing scenarios through to their respective end games - asking why, to what benefit, whose benefit and just what is that benefit worth - was of high value.
   

4. At the end of the day, referring questions to Y’s office - just what happened and why - is a fine thing given the circumstances for which that office can be responsible.
   

5. If interested, the ecosystem can read between the lines and come to their own conclusions, or, even better, reach out directly to the people who had earned their trust.
   

I’d like to think most comms professionals prefer to work with clarity, transparently, and in the interest of engaging for awareness to build trust to some positive effect. The problem is, “positive effect” means different things to different parties. “Positive effect” for some means doing nothing or being less than truthful so that ultimately, nothing comes of it but the status quo following some event or change.

At some point, personally or professionally, we all need to take some solace knowing that we did the best we could, with integrity and lived to fight another day. So it is.