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"Perforce" is not mentioned until the fifth paragraph. When writing a document like this, open with your most important statement. For example: Title: "Perforc
by gwbas1c 5y ago
"Perforce" is not mentioned until the fifth paragraph.
When writing a document like this, open with your most important statement. For example: Title: "Perforce Acquires Puppet." Then, "We are announcing that Perforce acquired Puppet. When I started at Puppet three years ago..."
There. Was that too hard?
- macksd 5y agoOr just lead with "Perforce powers the technology that drives the digital economy", and that way I know there's no substance to the rest of it and can stop reading right away.
- CPLX 5y agoI mean I’m pretty sure “An open letter from the CEO” accomplishes the same thing.
- toyg 5y agoNo, no, you don't understand. Announcing an acquisition from the perspective of the acquired, is typically considered Bad News. So the exec rulebook imposes that you will try to soften the blow by talking up how great things are anyway and how marvellously his tenure has been. That is the most important bit, from his perspective. His target is to get you to read paragraph after paragraph of spin, so that when the Bad News comes, you'll be (if not persuaded) at least willing to consider it might not be too bad after all. It's like supermarkets placing daily essentials (bread, milk, meat) at the far end of the shop, so that you'll be forced to wander through and likely buy other stuff.
- whyleyc 5y ago*Her
- polynomial 5y agoThis right here is the salient point, which explains among other things why she called it an open letter. It's not good news, and the implication is the letter is addressing Puppet employees, cc general public. Although she's desperately spinning it as positive, the fact that the announcement came from the acquiree's side, not the acquirer implies this was an end of the line option for them, maybe even a fire sale. And the CEO's writing style here does little to dissuade one from drawing the conclusion Puppet has been suffering through a lack of anything resembling leadership from her for the past 3 years.
- IMTDb 5y agoFYI, absolutely all the exec / management courses that I have taken specifically advise against dragging a "bad" news after a sea of explanation. All the "exec rulebook" tell the same thing: announce the news first in simple - unambiguous terms terms - and their immediate, impactful consequences. Then provide the "why", then provide a prospect for the future. Yvonne Wassenaar did not apply the exec rulebook, she should have.
- toyg 5y agoThat's the sort of thing they teach you in school because few actually do it, like using "were" for hypotheticals. In my experience, most managers will try their hardest to sandwich bad news in a sea of platitudes.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Handytinge 5y agoBut that's not fearless and brave!