Get others involved. If you have
an employee who feels fully
engaged and has a sense of
ownership, who embraces the
mission and feels fully engaged
in the work, they are going to
see things that management
won’t see. They’re going to
have ideas that management
won’t have, because you are
going to have a lot of people
on the front line.
Management, policymakers
and decision-makers have to
have the benefit of their
insight. You ultimately have a
better organization. Sometimes, it’s small things, and sometimes, it’s really big
things. If you want to be the
best and you want to be a market leader in your field, you
really need the wisdom of
everybody who makes the
whole team work.
You also find out at times,
when you have good communication, you find out the skills
and abilities that staff members
have, things that could enhance
work of the organization.
When you see some of your
staff team members function,
you start to see members who
have some leadership abilities
that you didn’t know. That can
position them well for promotions or for other responsibilities. That’s happened several
times for us, where people
have had an opportunity to kind of demonstrate what they
can do in one of their extracurricular activities here.
Make time for engagement. Having time for face-to-face
communication is not easy.
That is why you have to schedule it. My calendar is very full,
as most executives have very
full calendars.
One of the things I told my
assistant was to schedule in
walking-around time. Get it on
the calendar because I live by
the calendar. The other thing I
try to do is with every new
employee is just have a 15-minute, get-acquainted time,
so that they come into the
president’s office, and it’s not
this mysterious place.
That way, I have an opportunity to find out if they have some family, where they grew
up, and it’s with no agenda. It’s
just a chance to get acquainted.
At that point, I try to share with
them a couple of key values
that I have for the organization.
I don’t do it as often as I’d
like, but a lot of it is just the
old-fashioned walking around,
trying to just have that connection. One of the things I
do that may sound simple is
I try to take employees out
on a birthday lunch once a
month. Whoever has a birthday that month, I invite them
to lunch.
If no other way, that gives
me an opportunity to have a
face-to-face hour with people
in the organization and get to
know people on a more personal level.
HOW TO REACH: United Way of Central Indiana, (317) 923-1466 or www.uwci.org
