RSSSalesforce.com CEO On Storytelling
I had a recent blog entry about storytelling and the pros and cons related to it. Marc Benioff (CEO of Salesforce.com) has a recent Q&A session with MSNBC, and he gives a good plug for storytelling:
Do you think that an attention-getting CEO helps a company?
It's
worked well for us. People become journalists because they love writing
stories, and they love talking about heroes and villains. A CEO's job
is to frame his company in a story. Now, of course, he has to fulfill
that with great products, with value, with successful customers. You
can hype and promote all you want, but ultimately you've got to deliver.
So long as storytelling stays away from accountants and the true fiction genre, we'll all be OK!
Marc's comments here on corporate philanthropy are also noteworthy (but not related to storytelling):
What's behind your emphasis on corporate philanthropy?
CEOs
have a responsibility. On the day I started Salesforce, I took 1
percent of the equity and put it into a public charity. I also said 1
percent of our time, or four hours a month per employee, will be for
paid volunteerism. And 1 percent of our profits would go to nonprofits.
Now, at the time, of course, we had no profits, we had no employees and
had no value in our stock options. But when we went public, the
foundation was vested with over $15 million, and there will be 12,000
hours of volunteerism by our employees.
Steve Shu
