The CEO and I didn’t always speak each other’s language. I was interested in talking about empathy, a buzzword used to the point of pure abstraction, and teaching the support engineers how to properly use punctuation. He was interested in running complex data analysis on our team’s performance and holding the boys accountable to numbers. I talked about compassionate analytics. He talked about optimizing. I wanted a team of tender hearts. He wanted a team of machines. “Why would I thank you for doing your job well?” the CEO asked, frowning. “That’s what I’m paying you for.”
