For this month’s challenge, Fortune Analytics partnered with Diligent Institute, the analysis arm of Diligent, a world chief in trendy governance offering SaaS options throughout governance, danger, compliance, audit and ESG. Diligent granted us unique entry to the uncooked knowledge that powers their Company Sentiment Tracker. To construct that tracker, they repeatedly scrape the online for govt statements and information protection of greater than 1,489 public corporations. The facility of the software is, in fact, assessing how enterprise leaders in combination are feeling.
The numbers to know
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- … The variety of phrases that had been among the many prime 100 (i.e. the 100 phrases used most steadily by company leaders) in every of the previous 36 months. These phrases are: change, China, economic system, future, development, India, markets, folks, technique, and warns.
24
- … The variety of months over the previous three years that 5G was among the many 100 most used phrases by company leaders.
25
- … The variety of consecutive months that inflation was among the many 100 most used phrases by company leaders. That streak dates again to December 2020.
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- Heading into 2023, company leaders are feeling a bit uneasy. Final month, 52% of company leaders’ public statements had a destructive connotation (see the second chart beneath). That compares to 45% in November 2021 and 29% in November 2020. Numerous it could actually doubtless be chalked as much as cussed inflation and elevated recession odds.
A number of deeper takeaways
1. Twitter soars up the charts.
Whereas company leaders are infamous for avoiding media highlight, Elon Musk has not solely chased it but additionally, seemingly, beloved each second of it. Nicely, at the very least he did earlier than 2022. In latest months, Musk’s turbulent takeover of Twitter has muddied the innovator’s public picture and develop into a subject of curiosity for fellow CEOs. Actually, final month Twitter was the No.7 mostly used time period in company leaders’ public statements.
2. CEOs are speaking quite a bit about inflation—that’s not factor.
Not solely did researchers at Diligent calculate the phrases most steadily utilized by executives, in addition they ran a statistical calculation to guage if the time period had a optimistic—or destructive—utilization.
Some issues, like “inflation” and “FTX” implying a destructive message, are apparent. Others are a bit stunning, together with the truth that when company leaders discuss “Apple” it virtually at all times has a destructive connotation.
3. Rhetoric clever, CEOs stays considerably bearish.
On paper, the U.S. economic system (exterior of fee delicate sectors like housing and tech) stays pretty robust. The jobless fee is underneath 4%, whereas company earnings and retail gross sales proceed to be resilient.
That stated, company leaders seem like getting ready for uneven waters in 2023. Living proof: Simply have a look at how usually they talked about “recession” all year long.
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