Challenge your people

Laurans Mendelson
CEO, HEICO Corp.

If you want your people to get excited
about your vision, you need to talk
about what you want them to do, says
Laurans Mendelson, chairman, president
and CEO at HEICO Corp. You may find
they have a few ideas to make your plan
even stronger.

“Give them a challenge and say, ‘We’d
like to accomplish this. Do you think
you can do it?’” says Mendelson, who
appeared in the June issue. “The first
thing they do is they look upon it as a
challenge. ‘This is exciting because the
boss asked me if I think I can develop
this and if I can do it. He didn’t tell me,
“Hey, you over there. Do this.” He said,
“Do you think you can figure out a better way to make this happen? Do you
know how to do that?”’”

It is human nature for people to want
to feel valued by others and the work-place is no different. If you ask employees for their opinion about a project, the
odds are greater that they will take a
genuine interest in the task.

“Now, I have a challenge,” Mendelson
says of the employee’s thought process.
“This is exciting. I think I can do this, and
I’m going to show him how I can do this.

“That person buys in to the program,
and he is at that point committed
because it is now his program. He is
going to make that program work.”