Interesting discussion and I wanted to call out a particular part: The CEO's willingness and constancy in responding to employees. I worked at Global Crossing

Interesting discussion and I wanted to call out a particular part: The CEO's willingness and constancy in responding to employees. I worked at Global Crossing during the entire time that John Legere (of T-Mobile fame) was CEO and he had a very similar policy, though I can't say for sure he didn't fire folks for writing him things he didn't like[0]. He swore up and down that he reads every message sent to him and that employees are always welcome to write him. I did so in the later evening on Christmas Eve (I'll admit I had a few beers in me) about some finishing touches I was putting on an application we were deploying to production the following week. I received a reply just after midnight on Christmas, clearly sent from a Blackberry. I can't remember the contents (it was something along the lines of "nice work") but I remember feeling quite good that the CEO was willing to take some time to reply to me on a holiday at a very odd hour. As "employee engagement" goes, this certainly improved mine. [0] I honestly don't know. Global Crossing had a total of "zero" good years in that every six months or so another 10% of the staff would be let go. Did some of that originate from a bad message sent to the CEO? No idea, but they were looking for reasons to get rid of anyone they could throughout my tenure. Though I'd written him a few times, I'd written him a few times but never in a manner that would have had cause to get me fired.