Jim Riesenbach doesn’t mind a little conflict. In fact, he even encourages it now and again. When managed in a controlled manner,
conflict gives rise to the competing points of view and dialogue that can fuel performance, Riesenbach says. Before he came on as
president and CEO of Autobytel Inc. in March 2006, the company was running on empty in this regard. The vehicle purchasing and
ownership Web service was spread too thin, offering too many services without doing any one thing particularly well. The company
posted 2006 revenue of $111.1 million, and although that was down from the previous two years, Riesenbach is turning that around
by opening the lines of communications and channeling a uniformed focus among his 329 employees. Smart Business spoke with
Riesenbach about how he makes decisions, the Socratic approach and how to share your vision over brown-bag lunches.
Create opportunities to communicate. You want
to encourage an environment where people feel free and open to express their
points of view.
I have twice-a-week, 8 a.m. operating
meetings with my (leadership team), and
we talk about all of the critical issues going
on. We put the key decisions that need to
be made, put time frames around those to
be sure that we’re staying on course and
not slipping.
Every six weeks, myself and the leadership
team spend one day off-site and take a look
more broadly at the one-year-and-beyond
horizon. Knowing the end in mind in where
we want to be, are we making the right decisions and executing to get us there?
Two times a quarter, we have company-wide meetings — an opportunity to communicate with everybody and have very
open question-and-answer opportunities.
It’s also important for me to get out and talk
to people. We have a little over 300 employees here, and what I’ve done is start something I call brown-bag lunches.
I get about 15 people around the room and
have a very open and frank dialogue about
what’s on their minds. What’s working?
What’s not working? When they listen to my
vision and the strategy for the company,
where are they seeing that we are doing well,
and where are they seeing disconnects?
Even for the people that are not participating in those kinds of meetings, the word
gets out that we have that kind of open
environment and that I’m actually seeking
that kind of feedback.
Take a Socratic approach. Have an environment where people respect the various
points of view.
I’ve never been the type of manager that
tries to avoid conflict. I actually think that
managed conflict is a positive thing. The
nature of running a company means that
you’re going to have people that have varying points of view.
What you need to do is make sure you’re
encouraging that conflict in a very managed
way, where people can present competing
points of view and have that open dialogue.
You need to do it based on the facts. It’s
important that the Socratic approach is
accompanied by the data and the facts that
help you to make that intelligent decision.
When someone has an opinion, show me
the facts that support that opinion. That’s
always part of any dialogue that we have.
Show me the history, show me where we
are today, and show me how we believe
that plays into the decisions we’re making
for the future.
There are some individuals that come
into places with a very authoritative style.
Almost inevitably, they get caught in some
bad decisions that they probably wouldn’t
have made if they had taken the time to
look at the overall marketplace and get that
broader feedback.
It’s absolutely impossible for any individual to be aware of and in touch with everything that’s going on, no matter how astute
they are and how much they try. There’s
just too much information.
At the end of the day, somebody needs
to make a decision. As they say, the buck
stops here. But at the same time, I want
everyone to feel that their point of view
was heard before I finally make that
decision.
Don’t delay decisions. You need to maintain a
sense of urgency and quick ability to make
decisions.
I’ve had to get comfortable over my
career with having imperfect or incomplete data.
It’s basically more driven by the time
frame that decisions need to be made.
The way I’ve approached it is to say, ‘I’ll
make that decision in the time frame I
need to with the best information that’s
available to me.’
Decisions need to be made in a very,
very quick time frame. There’s no room
for delaying a month a decision that
could be made today.
Show how the pieces fit in the puzzle. Every
employee, from top to the bottom of the
organization, has to have an understanding of how what they do fits in to the
total vision.
Have a set of clear and cascading goals
that start from the corporate goals. Then
be able to demonstrate how those goals
cascade to my next line of leaders’ goals
and straight on through the entire organization.
[It] allows each individual to be in the
position to say, ‘OK, here are the things
that I do that will impact my supervisor’s
or manager’s goals, which impacts my
division’s goals, which impacts the company’s goals.’
Repeat the vision. It’s also important to
continue to stress the vision and where
we are. Look at it in the broader context.
Every employee meeting, I open up
with a reiteration of our vision and a reiteration of our broad, longer-term trajectory. We’ve laid this out in terms of a
three-year trajectory to get the company
on a path to long-term profitability and
sustained growth.
So I basically make sure that people
understand the context of where we are,
so that if we hit a bump along the way,
which every company inevitably will do
at some point, people don’t lose the forest for the trees.
HOW TO REACH: Autobytel Inc., www.autobytel.com or (949)
225-4500