The first duty of the organizational editor

The astounding inanity of this CEO’s quoted words leads Bill Sweetland to formulate the Golden Rule for association and corporate editors

What is the very first duty of any competent company editor? “Getting employees to understand the strategic business objectives of your management,” you say.

No, this isn’t it.

Someone else will weigh in: “Giving employees what they tell you they want, while you support changes in work behavior that will improve your company’s bottom line.”

No, again.

What about, “Forget mere tactics. Take control of the chaos and make all your publications repeat and reinforce the main messages of your senior management”?

Nope.

No, your first duty as editor is much simpler: Don’t ever bore your readers. And don’t let your CEO bore them either.

This is job No. 1. You must take care of this before you inventory your publications, before you decide on strategy, before you hire a writing consultant, before you begin a campaign to reduce the irrelevant e-mails clogging company communication channels, before you start that new online publication.