Leading your business with
honesty is not a strategy or a tactic, says Walter Ulrich.
“It’s simply a matter of being
yourself and treating every
question and every communication opportunity with respect,”
says Ulrich, president and CEO
of Houston Technology Center.
“We can talk about a lot of
good news. But people don’t
believe the good news if you
don’t also share the bad news.
You don’t do it for the purpose
of increasing believability. It’s
an essential element of being
believable.”
Being honest means more
than just not lying. It means
being open with your employees both about the challenges
your company is facing and the
positive things they can do to
help clear those hurdles.
HTC helps companies in the
emerging technology sector
both through coaching and
through funding. The nonprofit
organization has provided feedback to more than 1,000 companies and helped to create
more than 3,000 jobs. It has
also raised more than $500 million for those companies by
always communicating in an
open and honest manner, a
value that begins at the top.
Smart Business spoke with
Ulrich about how to be honest
both in finding and leading your
employees.
Be clear about roles. Work with
the person during the recruiting process to make sure there
is a mutual understanding of
what the goals of the organizations are and the goals of that
position and what the boundaries are on that position.
I go out of my way to make
sure they know all the bad
news. ‘Hey, sometimes we
have to work late at night.’ I
make sure they know that. If
they say how often, and I think
it’s twice a month, I’ll say, ‘Two
to four times a month.’ When
they come, I want it to be better than I’ve advertised it
rather than have them be disappointed.
When the person comes on
board, they already know
what they are supposed to be
doing. Then it’s a matter of
monitoring their progress and
evaluating their results.
Ask for honesty. I ask (recruits)
to be honest with me. ‘You
know yourself better than I
know you. You know this job.
What are your reservations
about taking this job? What
are the things you worry about
to be successful in this job?’
We can have a pretty full
conversation about it. I always
ask them that if they don’t feel
they can make the commitment I’m looking for, to turn
down the job. I use those
words. ‘We’re asking for a
commitment. We’re asking for
these things to happen. We
feel comfortable with you. If
you don’t feel you can make
this commitment, you’re the
final arbiter. Think carefully
before you accept this job.’
Keep communicating. Communicate to them both in the
hiring process and then on an
ongoing basis during their
career what the goals of the
company are, how they fit in
to that, the goals of their job
and what their responsibilities
are and how they fit in to that.
Give them freedom to make
decisions, and then coach
them as they are making decisions. Congratulate them on
the right decision, and gently
coach them on the wrong
decision.
If you don’t do all those steps
and you just give them a lot of
authority without having the
grounding and the understanding and context and appreciation, then you’re going to have
bad things happen.
