Why big announcements can do more damage than good intentions.
It's been a minute since I've recorded one of these.
This past week, with the U.S. midterm elections unfolding, I've had a number of people ask me what I think about the results, the markets, and what might happen over the next couple of years.
My son sent me a message asking whether I thought the midterms were good or bad. He was also asking about the big tech sell-off, Anthropic's expected IPO, and where all of this might be headed.
My answer was pretty simple.
I think it's a good thing.
Not necessarily because I agree with the Democrats or disagree with the Republicans. I think it's a good thing because people are going to have to start talking to each other again.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized there's a leadership lesson here that applies directly to how we run our businesses.
When People Have to Work Together
With Democrats set to control both the House and Senate when the new Congress takes office in January, President Trump will have a more difficult time advancing his legislative agenda without engaging with the other side.
That doesn't mean there won't be conflict. There certainly will be.
But it does mean that if either side wants to accomplish something requiring legislation, they're going to have to figure out how to work together.
I think that's healthy.
I see something similar happening in the technology industry.
Companies have been pouring billions of dollars into artificial intelligence infrastructure, particularly data centres. My suspicion is that companies with facilities already under construction are going to find themselves in a favourable position.
Why?
Because I think it's going to become increasingly difficult to secure approvals for new projects. Municipalities and state governments are going to want more say in how these facilities affect their communities, their infrastructure, and their resources.
That creates a need for conversation.
I also suspect we're going to see some repricing around the anticipated Anthropic IPO and potentially other technology investments. We'll see how that unfolds.
I tend to believe markets are remarkably efficient at sorting these things out over time.
But the interesting part to me isn't necessarily whether a particular investment makes money.
It's that everyone is going to have to spend a little more time listening to the people around them.
And that brings me back to leadership.
People Remember the Promises You Didn't Keep
Donald Trump made a lot of promises.
Like him or dislike him, I think one of the lessons from these midterms is that people eventually judge leaders on the things that matter to them personally.
You can talk about GDP growth, investment, job creation, and all the other economic indicators that suggest things are moving in the right direction.
But if someone walks into the grocery store and their milk and cereal cost more than they did last year, that economic success doesn't necessarily mean much to them.
The same applies to housing, health care, and the consequences of decisions like the war in Iran.
People measure leadership against their lived experience.
And my reading of the midterms is that many voters weren't necessarily embracing everything the Democrats had to offer. They were expressing dissatisfaction with the leadership they already had.
That's an important distinction.
As business owners, we can make the same mistake.
We tell our employees how great the company is doing. We talk about revenue growth, new opportunities, our vision for the future, and all the things we're going to accomplish.
But what if the people working for us aren't experiencing that success?
What if their daily reality isn't getting any better?
At some point, our announcements stop meaning anything.
The Business Leader Who Wanted to Make an Announcement
I spent some time with a business leader this week.
He invited me to sit in on one of his meetings and asked me to observe what was happening. Afterward, we talked about what I thought could be improved.
It was a good conversation.
Then he asked me a question.
Should he make a big announcement at the next meeting, explaining all the changes he intended to make?
I told him he could.
But I wouldn't.
I'd just show up next week and run the meeting differently.
No big announcement. No speech about how everything is about to change.
Just do it differently.
Maybe the first week people notice something has changed.
Maybe the second week they notice the meeting is a little more productive.
And after a month or two, they realize they're getting more value out of the time they're spending together.
You don't have to tell people things are getting better.
They can see it.
I used the example of showing up to work wearing a white collared shirt when you normally don't.
The first day someone might notice.
The second week it's less unusual.
Eventually, it's just what you wear.
You didn't need to make an announcement about your wardrobe. You just changed something and kept doing it.
Leadership can work the same way.
The Problem With Big Announcements
Here's the danger.
Every time you announce that something is going to change, you create an expectation.
And expectations create a new standard against which people measure you.
If you deliver, great.
But if you don't, you've potentially made things worse than they were before.
People become frustrated. They start questioning whether you know what you're doing. Eventually, they stop believing what you tell them.
That's a difficult position to recover from as a leader.
I've become increasingly conscious of this in my own businesses.
Of course, people need vision. They need to know what we're working toward and why it matters.
If we have a revenue target we're trying to reach before year-end, that's something I want the team to understand.
But that doesn't mean I need to make some dramatic new announcement every week about what we're going to do differently.
I need to make sure we're doing the work necessary to achieve the goal.
There's a difference between providing direction and constantly promising change.
One gives people something to work toward.
The other can become a substitute for actually doing the work.
People Eventually Stop Listening
There's another part of the election results that I think applies to our businesses.
People can appear disengaged for a long time.
They might not complain. They might not challenge you. They might even seem perfectly happy with the way things are going.
But that doesn't mean they're satisfied.
At some point, people decide they've had enough.
And when that happens, they don't necessarily move toward something better. Sometimes they simply move away from what they no longer trust.
Think about that in the context of your employees.
Do you want people working for your company simply because it's better than their other options?
Or do you want them there because they genuinely believe in what you're building and want to be part of it?
I know which one I'd prefer.
But that kind of commitment isn't something we can demand.
We have to earn it.
Let Your Work Speak for Itself
I don't know what the next two years of American politics are going to look like.
My predictions about technology companies, data centres, and the markets might turn out to be right. They might not.
But I do think there's an opportunity here for all of us who lead businesses to reflect on the expectations we're creating.
Are we promising more than we're prepared to deliver?
Are we making announcements because they're necessary, or because they make us feel like we're leading?
And are the people we're responsible for actually experiencing the benefits of what we're telling them?
I think our job as leaders is pretty straightforward.
Serve our people.
Build stable businesses.
Give people a direction worth working toward.
And then do the work.
We don't need to convince everyone that we're doing a good job.
We need to do a good job.
Let the results speak for themselves.