As a communicator, Terry Maynard prefers a basic, straightforward approach with the messages that he delivers to his managers in the office and employees in the field.
But that doesn’t mean the founder, president and CEO of MedSource Home Care believes in one-size-fits-all communication for the nearly 300 staff members who comprise MedSource.
Whether Maynard is talking to his support staff, sales force or administrators, he believes in tailoring his message to his audience and trains his managers to do the same. When he’s done delivering his messages, he encourages feedback to stimulate a dialogue throughout the company.
Smart Business spoke with Maynard about how better communication can strengthen the connections among all levels of your company.
Q. How do you create a dialogue with employees?
What I do in terms of training is to start at the top with a clear, concise job description. Then we train them on their particular role. Then, in terms of getting them into the vision and the values of what we’re doing as a whole, I ask my employees for honest answers.
What I use is a questionnaire that I picked up a few years back, that would ask my employees questions like, ‘If you were the owner, what would you change and why?’ and a series of questions along that line. We try to take that feedback and see if we can apply that, see if there is anything we got out of that we could use. Things we can put in our everyday routine.
By doing that, it lets them know that we value that input, in terms of what is good for the company. We ask them questions like ‘What direction do you see for our company? How are we vulnerable?’ Questions like that give us a front-line look at what they might perceive as our areas of weakness.
Q. Why do employees need to have that voice within the company?
You need them to buy in to your concept. You want them to be better than individuals who are consumed with just the work on their desk, their tasks, and at 5 p.m., that’s it. The papers are neatly stacked and it’s time to go home. We want them to understand that how you stack your papers in a certain way affects what we do as a whole. The toughest part about being in business is that it is hard to get people to buy in. If you can get them to buy in to the big picture, they’ll be more effective.
I use the example of individuals who might do sales and marketing. They work on the outside. Some of those folks might get up and go to work when they feel like it. There has to be something that gets them to hit the ground running and give a committed eight hours out there in the field, even if they’re unsupervised. Then, at the end of the quarter, your numbers will reflect that. Motivation is the toughest part about it. I let everyone know that if you’re on goal and on task, it’s part of a puzzle that will help everything else run smoothly.