Bobby Yazdani doesn’t have
a corner office. So if you’re looking for the CEO of Saba
Software Inc., you should probably search the main employee
area. That’s because Yazdani,
who founded the company in
1997, has learned the value of
building relationships with his
front-line employees. After
leaving Saba in 2002, he
returned in 2004 to find the
human capital management
software and services provider
struggling and hovering around $30 million in annual revenue.
Focusing his energy on turning the company around, he
made a list of core priorities
centered on two-way communication and transparency, letting
his 600-plus employees know
where the company was going
and why changes had to be
made. In return for that honesty, they helped him pinpoint
problems and create a greater
focus on personalized employee incentives. As a result, Saba
posted fiscal 2007 revenue of
nearly $100 million, up from
$71 million in fiscal 2006.
Smart Business spoke with
Yazdani about how transparency
ignites your staff and why empathy
is job No. 1 for a new generation of leaders.
Maintain organizational transparency.
I fundamentally believe that everyone needs to understand the
challenges you are facing, and
they need to have complete transparency of what the leaders in
the company are thinking all the
time and what the priorities are.
A leader needs to have a clear
sense of transparency in the
organization. There needs to be
a sense of integrity in a place
people work. People have to
have a strong sense that there is
a great deal of integrity in their
leaders because that’s the people that they work for.
Transparency creates a level
of integrity where people get
engaged better. Whether it’s
easy or hard, whether it’s challenging or if there are opportunities, they will be more engaged.
An engaged employee base
deals in significantly higher
quality work.
You have to be enthusiastic;
you have to have that energy
and enthusiasm. Transparency
automatically leads to a level of
enthusiasm. I get a lot of energy
by having a transparent relationship with my employees and our
community here because when
they trust you, you learn from
them and get an opportunity to
share that energy with them.
Take the time to be empathetic.
Empathy is the No. 1 skill a
leader should have. For the new
generation of leaders, empathy
is a skill set we need more than
ever in leadership — and that’s
so we listen and learn.
It’s extremely key to try to
understand where people are
coming from, and that yields a
level of humility. The days of the
celebrity leaders are numbered
— those things don’t have the
kind of appeal they used to
have; that’s why I don’t believe
in leaders in corner offices.
Create a personal connection with
your staff. As leaders, we have a
tendency to know it all, and it’s
amazing the wealth of information that comes from people
that are closer to the problem.
Creating an environment where
there is a forum, where leaders
can listen, that’s where your management system really enables.
We have a very stringent review
process where we review our
business, and everyone gets to
hear everyone else. Through that
transparent environment, we
can listen and learn by reviewing
the details, and there comes
from that a lot of good data
about the core issues at hand.
I report back to our employee
base every 90 days. I get in front
of them, and they get to ask me
any questions they want. …
… It’s my job at these key events to get in front of the employees
and make myself available. It
really comes down to personal
connection. I want to increase
the opportunity to have that personal connection and get an
opportunity to learn from them.
I learn from employees by just
being with them and hearing
about their observations — and
they’re learning from the customers in the marketplace. Relationship building is at the core
of it, and personally following
through on that creates a training opportunity for both of us.
Tie performance to personalized
incentives. There is an approach
that we have that is essentially a
rating of the performance that
yields incentive pay.
The core benefits themselves
are crucial, but we want to be
able to offer even more benefits
to high-performing employees, so
the top 50 percent of our company gets acknowledged quite a
bit — not just through the management assessment process,
but they also get acknowledged
with an employee reward program. Employees nominate
other employees, we announce
that on a quarterly basis and that
leads to elevating people that,
at times, you don’t necessarily
see, people who go above and
beyond in helping other people.
I get to present it to the employees, and we show all the nominees and color why the nominee is up there. It’s really a community-based ranking, and there
is a gift that we give them, and
they really enjoy it.
Focus on core changes. When
you are in a turnaround situation, there is a tendency to try
to do too many things. You
have to pick up two or three
strategic initiatives and be
consistently focusing on those
things and stay on the message to make sure people
understand the priorities and
the importance of them.
The top priority for us was
transparency. It goes back to
very basic things: A business has
to be profitable; [it] has to be
focused on a few categories that
you want to excel at. Leadership
is always a challenge, so make
sure that leaders are always
engaged and keeping a consistent culture for those supporting
the turnaround.
HOW TO REACH: Saba Software Inc., (650) 581-2500 or www.saba.com