The employees of Navman
Wireless North America
are spread out all over
the country, which can make
communicating with them a
challenge. So, Renaat ver
Eecke, general manager of
the North American division,
which employs about 50 people, has to do a lot of traveling to stay in touch, but he
says it’s worth it because
that type of communication
is so important.
“I lead a lot by being there,
going out, understanding
what the challenges are from
the distributors and really
making sure that I consistently say the same message
from a communications
standpoint, not only internally but externally,” he says.
Smart Business spoke
with ver Eecke about how to
communicate effectively in a
growing company.
Q. How can a leader consistently communicate when
employees are widespread?
One of the things I did —
and it gets a little bit more
challenging as you grow
because the ability to do it as
frequently as you want
becomes more challenging
— but if you’re in a smaller
company and you’re just
starting to lead, I think giving monthly updates.
When I first started taking
over the U.S. business, I did
monthly updates for the
entire team.
It was an all-hands meeting. I talked a lot about,
‘Here’s how we are from a
revenue perspective. Here’s
what we’re doing. Here’s
why we are trying to grow these things.’ Any major
changes that were coming
up, I would communicate
why we are doing it.
Because, in my opinion, the
things that confuse organizations are not that changes
are being made or that ‘this’
is coming, it’s ‘why’ that people don’t address very well.
There was a lot of remote
stuff. So, we used the latest
technology to empower
everyone to be on the same
page.
Every single person that
reported in to the
organization had to be
on this call, and they
knew it — even the
salespeople.
I said, ‘Look, when is
the best time where
you are normally at
home? It’s not going to
disrupt sales.’
They knew it every
month. They had to
block off (that time).
They wouldn’t make
appointments there. I
found it very effective
on keeping everyone
on the same page. As
the business has grown
here, I do that, but I
now do that on a quarterly basis. I don’t do it
monthly. I do a communications out via e-mail monthly,
then I do an all-hands quarterly meeting.
