Start the dialogue
MuruzÁbal began his effort by laying out his plan for expanding his foothold in the U.S. to his employees. He explained that Neoris was in a great position to gain business in the United States and bring its brand of excellent service to a new batch of customers.
“It was trying to take advantage of the skill sets and the strength of traditional onshore consulting with the fact that we had very capable talent south of the U.S. border in the same time zone with a culture proximity to the U.S.,” MuruzÁbal says.
It’s a simple, perhaps even an obvious step. But you can’t just assume that your employees will understand what you want to do. Show them a level of respect by giving them a rundown of what you want to do and why you want to do it.
“You have to put your people first,” MuruzÁbal says. “There’s no way you’ll have clients who are delighted with the work or the value that you provide if you don’t focus on delighting your own employees first. This is an old way of thinking, but it’s still true to me. Satisfied employees drive satisfied clients drive satisfied shareholders.”
Get the dialogue started and demonstrate to your people that you want their thoughts and ideas on how to give your plan an even better chance to succeed.
“It’s more like everybody chipping in and providing their ideas and support and recommendations and even their personal networks from past experiences to try to make things happen,” MuruzÁbal says. “It’s not a one-way leadership decision. It’s the whole team coming in and supporting it.”
The more questions you address at the beginning and the more time you give to shaping your plan, the fewer misunderstandings you’ll have to deal with at the end.
“You would typically hear that strategy comes first and then building the team that can execute the strategy comes second,” MuruzÁbal says. “But sometimes you tailor your strategy based on the talent you can capture and identify in the marketplace. Sometimes the people you have play a big impact on how you define what you want to do in the marketplace.”
What you’re really doing is demonstrating confidence that you can make your plan happen. But you’re mixing in a dose of humility to show that you can’t do it all alone.
“You don’t want to present yourself as if you always have the right answer and you always know what you have to do,” MuruzÁbal says. “It’s incredible the value of asking for help and showing that you might have some doubts. We all have doubts. It’s worth asking people, ‘How do you feel about this idea?’ We as leaders have a tough time doing that because we feel we’ve lost strength if we do that and we lose faith in front of our people. I just believe you have to do a little bit of that if you want to be a true leader.”
In the case of Neoris, the launching of a dialogue about entry into the U.S. market was reassuring to employees. It demonstrated, as they had seen in previous market entries in Europe and the Middle East, that they would be included when it came time to launch a new initiative.
“You have a lot of people looking at what you’re doing,” MuruzÁbal says. “You need to make sure in every single thing, internal or external, you’re consistent. You’re aligned with the strategic direction and with a strategy that has been described.”
