Provide emotional tools. The
physical environment is important, but more than the physical
environment is the emotional
environment. The leadership of
the office conveys the emotional environment.
You’ve got to motivate them.
Give them opportunities. Keep a
positive attitude with them and
continually reinforce them.
Motivation and praise go a long
way to overcome a lot of ill wills
that might come up.
Give them the knowledge that
you’re there to help them at any
point in time they need you, and
you can supply them with other
individuals who have specific
knowledge about situations if
they run into a problem. We provide a parachute in the sense
that if they need support, they
can come to us.
I’m not a believer in looking
over people’s shoulders and
making sure that they’re definitely here at 8:30 in the morning and that they definitely leave
at 5 o’clock, and that they don’t
get up from their desk unless
they have to get a cup of coffee.
You’re a professional. You
know about when you need to
be here in the morning, and you
know about when you need to
leave in the afternoon, and you
know how much work you
have to accomplish.
Allow them to have the freedom to do their work the way
they know how to do it without
constantly looking over their
shoulder. It’s giving them flexibility and trusting that they will
do the job that they’re paid to
do within a reasonable time
frame, but it’s not being a time
counter.
It allows them to work in the
way that they’re most comfortable, and it allows them to have
the flexibility and the freedom
to generate quality ideas.
Build trust. The key to every successful firm is building an environment of trust. What one single thing could take down a
company? Losing trust. Build
an environment of trust and
walk the walk.
If you tell people that you’re
going to act in a particular way,
and then you act in that way,
they trust you, and then you
continue to reinforce that by
constant actions, then they’ll
start feeling comfortable. When
you ask people, ‘Tell us what
you really think, and don’t be
afraid of the consequences of
what you’re saying,’ you’ve got
to live up to that. You can’t then
do something that destroys
what you just promised them.
If you don’t allow people to
communicate to you what they
feel are issues, they’re going to
feel that you’re not interested in
improving and you don’t care
about what they say. At the
same time, if they make these
comments, and they find that
there’s some retribution, then
they won’t ever bring it up
again, and the rest of the staff
will find out about it and then
they’ll feel somewhat at risk.
HOW TO REACH: LEO A DALY, (214) 526-1144 or www.leoadaly.com
