Show your vulnerability. (Don’t)
worry about being vulnerable. I
have no problem telling somebody, ‘I tried it. It didn’t come
out right. Let’s find another way.’
Everything that I say and I do
isn’t perfect, and, for that matter, not everything that they say
or do is perfect. The idea here is
to continually learn to do better
and obviously not to break the
bank and make stupid mistakes.
They are really giving you
good ideas and good information and sometimes good critique and sometimes also stuff
that you realize that you have
not successfully communicated.
You say something, and you
know that you meant one thing,
but a guy says, ‘Jacob, I hear
this and this,’ and I say, ‘Wait a
minute. I didn’t mean it that
way.’
Now you know that many
people in the company misunderstood you, and you have an
opportunity to go and correct it.
Undergo a 360-degree evaluation. A 360 is a system where you
ask people to comment on
what you do — people that are
above you, below you, who
work with you.
We actually don’t force it. We
recommend it. The best way is
if (me) and my partner ask to
have it done on us every year.
Then, other people are all of a
sudden looking at it and saying,
‘If they’re doing it and it’s helping them, why shouldn’t I try?’
For example, I managed an
operation in the company, and
I had some very strong feelings about what the operation
committee should look like. In
the 360, it’s been two or three
years in a row that people are
saying, ‘Jacob, we don’t think
that the operation committee
is the best thing for us.’ So I’m
getting ready to get in front of
the principals, and I said, ‘I
heard it once, I heard it twice,
I heard it again. Let’s get
together and decide how do
we change it to make it more
beneficial for everybody.’
Focus on the big picture. You
really need to believe in a larger
vision. Yes, we can measure
numbers and everything, but
unless we really believe that
there is something larger here,
bigger here, then it does us no
good.
Every time you get in front of
your people, that theme needs
to be part of the story. If you
want to go into a new program,
let’s say we want to expand the
water market, well, why are we
doing it? There are more people
dying in the world for lack of
water or contaminated water
than any other thing around. It
is such an important job to be
able to deliver water and clean
water.
All of a sudden, it’s not just
about how efficiently you’re
doing in terms of profit. All of a
sudden, there is an emotional
story about why it is so important that we are doing it well.
HOW TO REACH: Psomas, (213) 223-1400 or www.psomas.com
