Q. How do you create an
open culture?
If you want an open culture,
you have to be open yourself.
This means communicating
relentlessly with your company.
I start my day by walking
through the plant entrance …
and saying good morning to all
of my teammates. If you want to
find out what’s happening at
your company, go to the front
line and just listen. The more
you listen and follow up with
action items, the more open
your team becomes to communicating ideas with you on how
to make the organization better.
You always want to be sharing. For me, it could be a quick
e-mail to the entire staff, it
could be just out on the sales
or plant floors talking to people. There are lots of ways, but
I’m rarely sitting behind my
desk, I’m always out communicating, talking and finding
out what’s going on in each department, and just keeping
the team informed.
It’s the personal connection.
You’re learning about them as
an individual and key things
that are going on with them
that help you connect. As I’m
walking around or communicating, I’m trying to see, are
there any roadblocks getting
in the team’s way, and what
can I do to eliminate those
for them?
Q. How do you encourage
teamwork so that employees
are working toward the vision
and mission?
You’ve got to have great people … and then it’s making
sure someone’s doing what it
is that they do best. Then
always communicate to them
what’s going on in each
department so that they can
feel the momentum.
We look for solid character
and a history of success in life
at some point. … It could be
from having raised great children to captains of their college sports teams to loyalty to
past companies. I always say
the coach of the San Diego
Chargers doesn’t hire a field
goal kicker without watching
them kick field goals under
pressure situations time and
time again. So you’re looking
for something in the past that
is a leading indicator to what
type of person they’re going to
be for you on the team. You’re
looking for examples and verification of that example.
You either hire smart or
manage tough, and it’s far too
time-consuming to manage
tough. The benefit is you
don’t have to manage tough,
yet if you hire smart, you can
give people rope, let them
flourish, support them and
spend time leading the team
without having to be a tough
manager.
HOW TO REACH: Gringo Ventures LLC dba Dos Gringos, (760) 477-7999 or www.dosgringos.com
