Worst Employer Needs Closure Conversation

When the employer-review site Glassdoor.com recently designated Dish Network the country’s worst employer, Dish Network CEO Joe Clayton called the worst-employer label “ridiculous.”

Unfortunately, Joe’s denial won’t change what employees or, now, the public think.  If he really wanted to change how Dish has been branded, he would start with a Closure Conversation.

Closure conversations are one of The Four Conversations and are used to complete the past and open the possibility for something new.  In a closure conversations, people acknowledge the facts, appreciate the people, apologize for mistakes and misunderstandings, and amend broken agreements.

Rather than dismissing the worst employer label as ridiculous, Joe could acknowledge that this is how employees see the company and its current management practices.  He could then appreciate their honesty and thank them for pointing out something that he, Joe, finds unacceptable.  By apologizing for the current state of affairs and accepting responsibility for them, he could commit to creating a new Dish Network with the help of employees and promise that things will change.

Of course, Joe could only say all this if he were really interested in ending the current era at Dish and building something new.