Build up your people
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To keep your messages active and circulating in a challenging time, you need advocates throughout your organization.
They’re in there somewhere. You just have to know how to find them, groom them and empower them to keep your company together.
If you can create communicators throughout your company, it’s another way to generate trust between management and employees, even when an air of uncertainty is swirling around the organization.
“Identifying them is pretty easy,” Perry says. “If you walk around your company, you’ll find them. They’re the ones who speak up, who participate. They’re the people who others cluster around. What you have to find out is, are they working on behalf of the company or against it? You need to get to know them better before you can assess that.”
A leader doesn’t have to hold an upper-management title. When you’re trying to promote a new way of thinking in your company, the leaders are the ones you highlight as people who can create buy-in from the people in their division or department.
“One of the things I’ve learned over time is that you will find leaders at every level of the organization,” Perry says. “Leaders aren’t just those who happen to have a management title. They are the ones who really help keep a company together in bad times. Having those people in place and informed can really help to offset those few naysayers who just think the sky is falling all the time. If you have people at all levels who are saying positive things, it can help to head off an undercurrent of people who are saying negative things.”
Recognition — when it is genuine and warranted — is another key factor in building a positive mindset among employees during challenging times. Every win your company achieves is something you should promote and encourage others to promote. It doesn’t matter if it is an individual accomplishment, a team goal that was met or exceeded, or something in which the entire company can share.
When employees are hearing about nothing but cutbacks and downsizing, it is good to remind them that the company is still making positive strides. But you need to be careful in how you recognize individuals and teams.
“You need to really investigate the data in terms of the person and their accomplishment,” Perry says. “What you don’t want to do is give someone credit in front of the organization, and then realize that the work was actually done by other people. So you need to make sure you do that for all high-level recognition.
“But overall, recognition is positive. It’s a way to reinforce that you’re headed in the right direction. We always make sure that we’re talking about the good things along with the bad things. We talk about some of the positive changes that have been made, some of the advancements we’ve made by going through a particular issue or crisis, even if the outcome isn’t quite what we desired. You just have to be sure that the recognition you give people is well earned and well deserved.”
Perry’s people-first approach to crisis management has helped Yazaki North America weather the storm, though the company isn’t in the clear yet. Despite signs of improvement in the U.S. economy in the last quarter of 2009, the face of the U.S. auto industry has been permanently altered. Chrysler is now connected to Italian automaker Fiat, and the post-bankruptcy GM is far more streamlined than its previous incarnation, having purged some of its well-known brands, such as Pontiac, Hummer and Saturn.
Perry says any normal amount of contingency planning couldn’t have totally prepared Yazaki or its employees for the disaster that befell their industry in the past 18 months. But it doesn’t mean that planning and preparation didn’t help Perry lead his company through the minefield.
“We’re still in a mode where the future is uncertain,” Perry says. “It’s not very clear how long the recovery will take and in what form, which means we still have to adapt. That’s why you always need to be planning. Any company that isn’t planning has a real problem. You can’t just react to whatever happens.
“In a major crisis, the bigger issue is, how do you react? How do you react in a crisis that wasn’t anticipated? Do you stay true to your values or react in a way that makes people think you’re panicking? As a leader, you need to make sure that your people know that even in a crisis mode, with very uncertain times ahead, the company is staying true to its values and is doing everything possible to care for its employees.”
How to reach: Yazaki North America Inc., (734) 983-1000 or www.yazaki-na.com
